According to the ISO definition, any product can be assistive, though usually products that are considered to be assistive are those which are specially designed to improve the functionality of a person with disabilities (World Health Organization, 2001). The problems with these specifically designed devices are the commonly mentioned discontinuance in use and abandonment. Lack of information o...

BACKGROUND Frailty represents an increased vulnerability to external stressors due to decreased physiological reserve and dysfunction in multiple bodily systems. The relationship between frailty and mortality has been well-documented in the literature. However, less is known about the predictive powers of frailty index and its components on mortality when they are simultaneously present. This s...

BACKGROUND In clinical settings, it is important for health care providers to measure different aspects of functioning in older adults with joint pain and comorbidity. Besides the use of distinct measures, it could also be attractive to have one general measure of functioning that incorporates several distinct measures, but provides one summary score to quantify overall level of functioning, fo...

OBJECTIVE The objective of the present study was to investigate the impact of incident falls on the balance, gait, and Activities of Daily Living functioning in community-dwelling older adults. METHODS This was a population-based, 1-year prospective cohort study in older adults. We performed baseline assessment of potential predictors, the 1-year occurrence of falls, and then 1-year reassessm...

Background Despite the importance of midlife with reference to one’s health, educational inequalities in health have attracted little attention China. Using Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, this study examined association between attainment and onset problems investigated potential mediating effects socioeconomic position (SEP) other than attainment, depression, behavior. Methods D...

Abstract Background. Multimorbidity, defined as two or more chronic conditions, negatively affects quality of life. However, little is known about the underlying pathways leading from multimorbidity to lower life (QoL). Objective. The objective this paper was examine multiple potential mediating factors (loneliness, Activities Daily Living [ADL], Instrumental [IADL], depressive symptoms) in rel...

OBJECTIVE This research explored the long-term benefits of engaging in proactive health promotion efforts among old-old residents of Sunbelt retirement communities to empirically test components of the Preventive and Corrective Proactivity (PCP) Model of Successful Aging. Specifically, we examined the contributions of exercise, tobacco use, moderate alcohol use, and annual medical checkups to m...

BACKGROUND A brief, inexpensive screening test for sarcopenia would be helpful for clinicians and their patients. To screen for persons with sarcopenia, we developed a simple five-item questionnaire (SARC-F) based on cardinal features or consequences of sarcopenia. METHODS We investigated the utility of SARC-F in the African American Health (AAH) study, Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (...

BMI is commonly used indicator of malnutrition and 18.5-24.9 kg/m(2) is generally regarded optimal. However, there is an ongoing debate on ideal range for elderly. BMI cut-off values vary also between ethnic groups. We aimed to investigate relationships between BMI, functional status and malnutrition in elderly living in a nursing home in Turkey. BMIs of 254 residents were calculated. Chronic d...