The latest edition of the Institute for Successful Longevity’s Newsletter features the work of two ISL researchers looking into the question of whether companion pets can ease the loneliness that worries some older adults.
Read the full newsletter here: ISL NEWSLETTER January 2018 – FINAL
When I was in college, my mother died during my junior year following a two-year struggle with cancer. As difficult as it was for me to lose her, my dad was in his early 50s and had to face changes in his life that were well beyond my comprehension as a 21-year-old. My mom and dad had been married 31 years when my mom died, and they had been together since the eighth grade. It’s hard to believe anyone could recover from something like that. And the truth is, not everyone fully adjusts to widowhood. So, why do some people do better than others?
Florida State University was recently awarded the designation of being an Age-Friendly University. The age-friendly university initiative is an international effort, started in Ireland by Dublin City University, and it fits nicely with initiatives such as WHO’s age-friendly city and community effort, being spearheaded locally by Sheila Salyer and the Tallahassee Senior Center. These initiatives represent grassroots efforts to address the challenges of an aging society.
We all often blank on an acquaintance’s name or forget a phone number that we’ve just checked. When we’re young, we don’t pay much attention to these memory failures, but as we grow older, we become concerned more about what they mean. According to a new national survey (West Health Institute/NORC Survey on Aging on America: http://www.westhealth.org/press-release/worries-about-aging-loom-large-for-americans-over-30-survey-finds/), memory loss is one of the leading concern for 60+ Americans.
There is an interesting development in terms of older adult participation in the paid labor force — people are working longer, reversing a decades-long trend toward earlier retirement.
The triad of bone, muscle and fat tissue deregulation: Recently, a new syndrome was identified and termed osteosarcopenic obesity (OSO), signifying the impairment of bone, muscle and adipose tissues as an ultimate consequence of aging. OSO may also develop due to the initiating presence of overweight/obesity perpetuated by low-grade chronic inflammation, as well as to inadequate diet and lifestyle.
When the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite on October 4, 1957, it did more than trigger the Space Race — it also laid the foundation for today’s telehealth, the remote provision of health care and education via communications technology.
Long term care for impaired younger and older adults has been a major part of the nation’s health care system for several decades, but until now it has not received much attention from the media or policymakers. With the projected doubling of the 70+ population over the next thirty years, however, it is being looked at with renewed interest.
Information scientists are a scholarly community who believe that it is vital to do empirical research to identify the information behaviors (a broad concept that encompasses many behaviors of people vis-à-vis information) of groups of users, and the environments (contexts, social worlds, etc.) in which they engage with information. Information behavior research within the field of information science centers the user and his/her needs, with the goal that information sources and services will be designed and delivered to meet those needs.
The Institute on Successful Longevity at Florida State University has a strong track record of promoting interdisciplinary exchanges among researchers. I am an economist, and Florida State University is the home of the Experimental Social Sciences Research Cluster at Florida State (XS/FS). I wanted to use the ISL blog to discuss an interesting question about experimental and behavioral research and to use that question to illustrate how social scientists in our field have been and could continue doing research applicable to the mission of ISL.
