Wellness During Midlife and Older Adulthood: A Different Perception

Investigating Holistic Wellness Dimensions During Older Adulthood: A Factor Analytic Study

“…The goals of this study were to examine what factor solutions emerged for older adults in terms of how they perceived holistic wellness, determine if these factor solutions resembled any developmental theories of older adulthood, and compare the factors to the four-factor solution reported by Foster and Levitov (2012). Based upon our results, we suggest the PWS offers a four-factor solution to describe how older adults perceive holistic wellness.…”

“…Individuals who possess higher levels of physical functioning may also contribute to a higher level of successful aging. The four items that loaded on Physical Wellness and the two items that loaded on Future Physical Wellness overlapped with six of the seven items that loaded on Foster and Levitov's (2012) Physical factor loading (see Table 3). …”

“…But the concept of holistic wellness, like many other human attributes, changes as individuals move across the lifespan. Specifically, individuals' perception and definition of the dimensions that make up holistic wellness evolves over time (Foster and Levitov 2012). For example, an adolescent and an older adult might perceive the dimensions of holistic wellness differently based upon their developmentally specific challenges.…”

“…In addition, Adams et al (1997) did not describe how each wellness dimension might evolve as individuals age. Foster and Levitov (2012) conducted a factor analytic study using the Perceived Wellness Survey (PWS; based on the PWM) to determine the validity of these six wellness dimensions using a sample of midlife and older adults. These authors found a four-factor solution (i.e., Optimism, Existential Despair, Physical, and Family/Friends) that depicted how these participants perceived holistic wellness, with three of the four factors resembling the last two stages of Erikson's psychosocial theory of development.…”

Impact of Playing Pokémon Go on Wellness

“…It has been documented that wellness perceptions do change, for example, as a factor of age [43]. From our perspective, this means that we have to test the influence of each individual wellness dimension on overall wellness, for only those influences of playing Pokémon Go on individual wellness dimensions that are also reflected in a comparable change in one's overall wellness should be considered meaningful.…”