Scholarly Works, Center for Gerontology
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Browsing Scholarly Works, Center for Gerontology by Content Type "Conference proceeding"
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- Adult Day Services Participation and Client Depressive Symptoms: A Longitudinal AnalysisBivens, Rebecca; Norouzi, Neda; Jarrott, Shannon E. (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-04)Our study explores whether adult day service (ADS) use is associated with the reduction of Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) scores of older adults who participated in ADS for at least six months.
- “All the World’s a Stage” – Bridging the Generational Gap through TheatreNorouzi, Neda; Lyon-Hill, Sarah (Virginia Tech, 2014-11-05)This research arose from a shared interest and collaboration between two colleagues in different academic fields. Neda Norouzi is a doctoral student in Architecture and Human Development, interested in how the physical environment affects intergenerational collaboration. Sarah Lyon-Hill is a doctoral student in Urban Planning, studying community-based theatre as an alternative approach to community and economic development. Both authors have theatre backgrounds due to their fathers’ professorial careers in script writing and set design. Understanding their common background and interest in building collaborative relationships among diverse groups, these authors turned to the growing presence and effects of intergenerational theatre programs (IG theatre). IG theatre emerged from the community-based theatre movement, which focuses on building the capacity and voice of different and often marginalized groups within communities through intergroup collaboration and helping diverse groups find a shared community identity (Strimling 2004).
- Assuring Quality Care: Exploring Strategies of Medicaid E&D Waiver ProvidersBrossoie, Nancy; Roberto, Karen A.; Teaster, Pamela B.; Glass, Anne (Virginia Tech, 2004)Implementing quality assurance (QA) programs in unregulated noninstitutional settings remains a challenge for home and community-based service providers. A sample of 65 Elderly & Disabled (E&D) Waiver providers in Virginia were presented with eight problem scenarios commonly found in home-care services. Each of the respondents was able to identify strategies they would use to recognize and address each problem. Findings suggest providers currently use multiple mechanisms as part of their overall QA program. Discussion focuses on the strengths of using multiple approaches and on increasing provider awareness of complementary QA strategies and reducing the reliance on staff report as a major QA strategy.
- Caregivers of Persons with Mild Cognitive Impairment: Information and Support NeedsWilcox, Karen L.; Roberto, Karen A.; Blieszner, Rosemary; Winston, Brianne L. (Virginia Tech, 2004-11)One of the newer concepts of age-related memory deficit is mild cognitive impairment (MCI). MCI reflects self-reported changes in cognitive function that do not necessarily interfere with work or social relations; it is viewed as a transitional phase between normal cognitive aging and dementia. Researchers and practitioners lack a comprehensive understanding of what relatives of persons with MCI are actually experiencing and what they realistically believe would be helpful to manage their situation now and in the future. In a multi-method, mini-longitudinal design that incorporated quantitative and qualitative approaches, we collected information from patient charts and semi-structured family interviews to investigate the information and support needs of 20 (out of 100 to be interviewed) family members of older adults with MCI. We found that, apart from information available about potential later diagnoses such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, families reported having little information available to them to assist in decision making and caregiving for early stages of memory loss. Family members were hesitant to think about and plan very far into the future and were more likely to take things a day at a time. Past experiences with family members or friends with memory difficulties or other serious health conditions enabled some family members to feel more at ease and knowledgeable with the process of seeking help for themselves and the older adult they were supporting. Findings suggest that earlier identification of memory loss has implications for clinical practice and the delivery of health care and social services to older individuals and their relatives.
- Caregiving Stress, Coping Strategies, and Health Outcomes: Results from the REACH II StudyButner-Kozimor, L. Michelle (Virginia Tech, 2015-11-21)The objective of this study was to understand CGs of PwD use of social support and religious and spiritual coping as coping mechanisms and potential impacts on physical and psychological outcomes, in line with the Stress Process Model (Pearlin, Menaghan, Lieberman, & Mullan, 1981).
- Change in Reports of Unmet Need For Help with ADL or Mobility DisabilitiesSands, Laura P.; Yuan, Miao; Xie, Yimeng; Hong, Yili (Virginia Tech, 2015)Self-care (SC) and Mobility (MO) disabled older adults require the help of others to successfully complete daily tasks. Thirty percent of respondents to the 2011 NHATS survey reported unmet need for one or more SC or MO disabilities. Reports of unmet need for disabilities is associated with: Future hospitalization¹ Readmission² Emergency Department use³ Mortality⁴ Little is known about patterns of unmet need over time, especially the degree to which unmet need resolves, varies, or begins. Determination of predictors of change in unmet need status would inform the development of interventions to reduce unmet need.
- Community Connections and Sense of Community among Older AdultsBrossoie, Nancy; Mancini, Jay A.; Roberto, Karen A.; Blieszner, Rosemary (Virginia Tech, 2003)The goal of this exploratory study is to identify what factors predict sense of community in older adult community members.
- Daily Stressors and Marital Interactions Affect Diurnal Cortisol and Alpha-Amylase Rhythm in Spouses of Persons with Mild Cognitive ImpairmentSavla, Jyoti S.; Roberto, Karen A.; Blieszner, Rosemary (Virginia Tech, 2011)Research aims: 1. To document daily symptoms and behaviors of persons with MCI 2. To assess how MCI-related symptoms, care needs and other stressors influence psychological well-being of care partners 3. To examine effects of MCI-related symptoms, care needs and other stressors on spouse care partner’s physiological indicators of health (Diurnal Rhythm of Coritsol and Alpha-Amylase)
- Elderly & Disabled Waiver Services: What Do We Know About Providers?Glass, Anne; Roberto, Karen A.; Teaster, Pamela B.; Brossoie, Nancy (Virginia Tech, 2003)Little is known about home and community based services (HCBS) and even less about the quality of those services. As part of a “Real Choice Systems Change” grant received by the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services, the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Tech conducted a survey of agencies providing HCBS under the Medicaid Elderly and Disabled (E & D) Waiver. A written survey was sent to 160 providers across the state, based on a sampling plan designed to ensure representation of all planning districts and services mixes. Seventy surveys were returned for a response rate of 44%.
- Evidence that Community-Based Long-Term Care is Preventive CareSands, Laura P. (Virginia Tech, 2014)This presentation outlines the benefits of community-based long-term care, including reduced hospitalization rates.
- An Exploration of Older Men’s Acceptance of Age InequalityKing, Neal M.; Pietilä, Ilkka; Calasanti, Toni M.; Ojala, Hanna (Virginia Tech, 2014)Age relations treat old people as marginal to occupational and dating networks, stigmatizing them as unattractive and unfit to do valuable work (Calasanti 2003; King 2006). Those systems intersect with gender, in which men gain privilege by associating themselves with skilled, valuable work and athletic performance, and women with sexual receptivity and artificial display (Calasanti and King 2007). In the intersection of age and gender, men lose much of their privileges as they grow old and leave the workplace, dismissed as no longer able to perform on valued jobs (King and Calasanti 2013). A large anti-aging industry markets to men products that promise to restore sexual potency and workplace assertiveness, as ways to counter the emasculating effects of old age (Calasanti 2007). Among studies of inequality, that of age relations provides a unique opportunity to test the extent to which a group can reify its own eventual subordination. This is due to the temporal nature of age relations (Calasanti 2007; Spector-Mersel 2006). We test for the hegemonic effect of masculinity.
- Extending Terror Management Theory to Increase Understanding of Older Adults’ Views of DeathOgletree, Aaron M.; Blieszner, Rosemary (Virginia Tech, 2015-11-19)We applied Baltes’ lifespan development perspective to TMT to examine how experiences influence worldview change over time. We argue that worldview adaptations can bolster older adults against death threat and ameliorate death anxiety.
- Family Perceptions of Mild Cognitive ImpairmentRoberto, Karen A.; Blieszner, Rosemary (Center for Gerontology, Virginia Tech, 2007-11)
- Financial Abuse in the Headlines: Prevalence of National NewsfeedsRoberto, Karen A.; Teaster, Pamela B.; Migliaccio, John; Blancato, Robert; Lawrence, Susie (Virginia Tech, 2010)This presentation provides an overview of elder financial abuse, including causes and effects.
- Geriatric Chronic Pain: Issues and Challenges from the Research LiteratureGold, Deborah T.; Roberto, Karen A. (Virginia Tech, 2001-11)Researchers interested in chronic pain in older adults come from multiple disciplines; thus existing information about geriatric pain is widely scattered. To establish a foundation from which to construct future research and interventions for older women and men, we developed a comprehensive, multidisciplinary database of the chronic pain and aging literature published between 1990 and 1998. In this paper, we examined the focus of studies of chronic pain in later life, how chronic pain was assessed and treated, and the influence of chronic pain on older adults’ quality of life. A search of ten electronic databases that index scientific journals yielded 302 articles that focused on chronic pain in later life. Given the disproportionate number of women in many of the study samples, gender comparisons were not always statistically feasible. Because a limited number of studies report gender comparisons in older adults, it is difficult to determine whether older women's experiences with chronic pain are unique and require special attention from health care providers or whether the causes, treatments, and consequences of chronic pain should be considered universal to the older population as a whole.
- Grandchildren as Caregivers for Their Custodial Grandmothers: Who Are They and How Are They Doing?Dolbin-MacNab, Megan L.; Roberto, Karen A. (Virginia Tech, 2010-11-20)This presentation explores how grandchildren as caregivers balance their caregiving responsibilities with the normative developmental tasks of adolescence.
- Grandfamilies: Parenting Satisfaction and Family FunctioningDolbin-MacNab, Megan L.; Sanford, Nicole M.; Rodgers, Brandon E.; Stewart, Shelley K.; Finney, Jack W.; Roberto, Karen A. (Department of Human Developmen, Department of Psychology and Center for Gerontology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, 2006-10)Previous research has demonstrated that grandparent caregivers experience high levels of physical, psychological, and relationship stress. However, few studies have examined how psychosocial and relationships. perspective, this exploratory study examined predictors of parenting satisfaction and family functioning among 40 grandmothers raising grandchildren. Parenting satisfaction was associated with lower levels of financial burden and better family functioning. More optimal family functioning was associated with higher parenting satisfaction, more social support, and grandmothers’ mental health (i.e., less depression and anxiety). Unexpectedly, higher financial burden was also associated with better family functioning. Findings suggest that the quality of custodial grandmothers’ family relationships is influenced by both individual and contextual factors. However, because social support and financial burden had the strongest influence, practitioners should pay particular attention to the impact of contextual factors on the quality of relationships within grandparent-headed families.
- Health, Spirituality and Environmental Concern: Older Women's Perspectives on the Natural EnvironmentHusser, Erica; Gigliotti, Christina; Roberto, Karen A. (Center for Gerontology and Dept. of Human Development, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2007-11)
- Home and Community-Based Service Use by Vulnerable Older AdultsWeaver, Raven H.; Roberto, Karen A. (Virginia Tech, 2014-11-07)The purpose of this study was to identify distinct profiles of service users and determine whether certain service user profiles have greater potential to meet older adults’ care needs.
- In Sickness and In Health: Daily Stressors and Implications of Mild Cognitive Impairment for Care PartnersSavla, Jyoti S.; Roberto, Karen A.; Blieszner, Rosemary (Center for Gerontology and Dept. of Human Development Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2009-11)
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