Healthy aging and dementia: findings from the Nun Study
Article Abstract:
The Nun Study is a longitudinal study of 678 Catholic sisters 75 to 107 years of age who are members of the School Sisters of Notre Dame congregation. Data collected for this study include early and middle-life risk factors from the convent archives, annual cognitive and physical function evaluations during old age, and postmortem neuropathologic evaluations of the participants' brains. The case histories presented include a centenarian who was a model of healthy aging, a 92-year-old with dementia and clinical significant Alzheimer disease neuropathology and vascular lesions, a cognitively and physically intact centenarian with almost no neuropathology, and an 85-year-old with well-preserved cognitive and physical function despite a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer disease and an abundance of Alzheimer disease lesions. These case histories provide examples of how healthy aging and dementia relate to the degree of pathology present in the brain and the level of resistance to the clinical expression of neuropathology.
Publication Name: Annals of Internal Medicine
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0003-4819
Year: 2003
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Psychosocial interventions to improve successful aging
Article Abstract:
Interventions designed to encourage people to change high-risk behavior have not been very successful. This is an important challenge because the number of older people in the population will double within the next 20 to 30 years. The increase will put enormous strain on an already overburdened medical care system. We therefore will need to put more emphasis on disease prevention programs. Helping people change high-risk behavior will be the key to prevention. To develop more effective prevention programs, we will have to train a new generation of experts who can not only provide people with risk information but also work with them as partners in achieving mutually agreed upon goals.
Publication Name: Annals of Internal Medicine
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0003-4819
Year: 2003
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The contribution of geriatric health services research to successful aging
Article Abstract:
Successful aging seems to refer to a broad set of circumstances that include but transcend healthy aging. The contribution of medical care to successful aging may lie in better management of chronic diseases. Health services research can contribute to successful aging by informing the delivery of medical care in this area. It can provide useful insights into what kinds of new approaches have proven successful and how to implement and sustain these changes. However, many of these lessons from health services research have been ignored in practice to date.
Publication Name: Annals of Internal Medicine
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0003-4819
Year: 2003
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