Age-related Deterioration in Flexibility is Associated with Health-related Quality of Life in Nonagenarians

Fabre, J; Wood, Robert H.; Cherry, Katie E.; Su, Joseph; Cress, Elaine; King, Christina M.; deVeer, Melissa J.; Ellis, Rebecca; Jazwinski, Michal

doi:10.1519/00139143-200704000-00004

Cited by 21 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…This gender difference in physical functioning may be due to older women's tendency to have lower body weight and strength than do older men (Wood et al, 2005). The present results underscore the important role of physical function in fostering health-related quality of life in late adulthood (see also Fabre et al, 2007). …”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Social Factors and Healthy Aging: Findings from the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS)

et al. 2016

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Social behaviors are associated with health outcomes in later life. The authors examined relationships among social and physical activities and health in a lifespan sample of adults (N = 771) drawn from the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS). Four age groups were compared: younger (21-44 years), middle-aged (45-64 years), older (65-84 years), and oldest-old adults (85 to 101 years). Linear regression analyses indicated that physical activity, hours spent outside of the house, and social support were significantly associated with self-reported health, after controlling for sociodemographic factors. Number of clubs was significantly associated with objective health status, after controlling for sociodemographic factors. These data indicate that social and physical activities remain an important determinant of self-perceived health into very late adulthood. Implications of these data for current views on successful aging are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Social Factors and Healthy Aging: Findings from the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS)

et al. 2016

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“…Wood et al (2005) have suggested that gender differences in physical functioning may be due to older women’s tendency to have lower body weight and strength than older men. Other evidence has shown that age-related declines in upper body flexibility were associated with lower health-related quality of life using the SF-36 PCS (see Fabre et al, 2007). The present results, among these others, underscore the important role of physical function in fostering health-related quality of life in late adulthood.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Social Engagement and Health in Younger, Older, and Oldest-Old Adults in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study

et al. 2011

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Social support has been shown to influence health outcomes in later life. In this study, we focus on social engagement as an umbrella construct that covers select social behaviors in a lifespan sample that included oldest-old adults, a segment of the adult population for whom very little data currently exist. We examined relationships among social engagement, positive health behaviors, and physical health to provide new evidence that addresses gaps in the extant literature concerning social engagement and healthy aging in very old adults. Participants were younger (21–59 years), older (60–89 years), and oldest-old (90–97 years) adults (N = 364) in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS). Linear regression analyses indicated that age, gender, and hours spent outside of the house were significantly associated with self-reported health. The number of clubs and hours outside of home were more important factors in the analyses of objective health status than positive health behaviors, after considering age group and education level. These data strongly suggest that social engagement remains an important determinant of physical health into very late adulthood. The discussion focuses on practical applications of these results including social support interventions to maintain or improve late life health.

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“…The mechanisms by which recovery occurs are complex and involve a number of processes, at different levels of the organism, from the DNA repair response (Moskalev et al 2012), to repair of chromosomal damage (Nicholls et al 2011) to autophagy (Couve and Schmachtenberg 2011; Fortini and Dogliotti 2010; Vicencio et al 2008), degradation of repair capacity (Koga et al 2011), and a host of others (Tacutu et al 2010b; Howlett and Rockwood 2013; Yashin et al 2013). This multiplicity of specific mechanisms responsible for age-related decline in the recovery rate likely corresponds to decline in flexibility (Fabre et al 2007) or loss of stress resistance with aging seen with decline in allostatic adaptation (Yashin et al 2007b, c, 2013). The decline in so many specific mechanisms has been characterized as “shrinkage of the homeodynamic space”, due to “the stochastic occurrence and progressive accumulation of molecular damage” (Rattan 2012, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing biological aging: the origin of deficit accumulation

2013

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The health of individuals is highly heterogeneous, as is the rate at which they age. To account for such heterogeneity, we have suggested that an individual’s health status can be represented by the number of health deficits (broadly defined by biological and clinical characteristics) that they accumulate. This allows health to be expressed in a single number: the frailty index (FI) is the ratio of the deficits present in a person to the total number of deficits considered (e.g. in a given database or experimental procedure). Changes in the FI characterize the rate of individual aging. The behavior of the FI is highly characteristic: it shows an age specific, nonlinear increase, (similar to Gompertz law), higher values in females, strong associations with adverse outcomes (e.g., mortality), and a universal limit to its increase (at FI ~0.7). These features have been demonstrated in dozens of studies. Even so, little is known about the origin of deficit accumulation. Here, we apply a stochastic dynamics framework to illustrate that the average number of deficits present in an individual is the product of the average intensity of the environmental stresses and the average recovery time. The age-associated increase in recovery time results in the accumulation of deficits. This not only explains why the number of deficits can be used to estimate individual differences in aging rates, but also suggests that targeting the recovery rate (e.g. by preventive or therapeutic interventions) will decrease the number of deficits that individuals accumulate and thereby benefit life expectancy.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10522-013-9446-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Age-related Deterioration in Flexibility is Associated with Health-related Quality of Life in Nonagenarians

Cited by 21 publications

References 22 publications

Social Factors and Healthy Aging: Findings from the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS)

Social Factors and Healthy Aging: Findings from the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study (LHAS)

Social Engagement and Health in Younger, Older, and Oldest-Old Adults in the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study

Assessing biological aging: the origin of deficit accumulation

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