Quality of Life in Older Age: Evidence from an Irish Cohort Study

Abstract

Increasing longevity can be associated with increasing QoL as long as it is accompanied by reasonable levels of mental and physical health, high-quality relationships, and social participation. Even if physical health becomes poor, evidence suggests that QoL can often remain high as individuals find value and enjoyment in other dimensions of life.

Quality of life in people aged 65+ in Europe: associated factors and models of social welfare—analysis of data from the SHARE project (Wave 5)

“…The lower QoL scores observed among people aged 80+ have been linked to more impaired physical [3,7] and mental health [2], as well as to higher rates of widowhood, associated with depression [9].…”

“…Research in this field has found that older age is associated with a reduction in QoL, which appears to peak at 67 years, falling thereafter [2]. The most important factors reported to be associated with this decrease in QoL are health-related, including functional impairment and depression, as well as lifetime cumulative adversity [3].…”

“…Studies of health status and its relationship to QoL indicate that the presence of illness [4,5] and limitations in activities of daily living (ADL) [6,7] are associated with poorer QoL. Mental health problems, especially depression, also have a negative effect on QoL [2,6,8], and they often coincide with physical illness and/or widowhood in persons aged 65+ [9].…”

Determinants of health-related quality of life in older primary care patients: results of the longitudinal observational AgeCoDe Study

“…4 Longitudinal studies are needed to investigate factors influencing HRQoL. Available longitudinal studies are based only on small numbers, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] have short follow-up periods of 6-18 months, 5,6,8,9,11,12 and/or did not investigate the development of factors influencing HRQoL, but included the factors only at one fixed point in time.…”

Determinants of quality of life in the elderly

“…In the elderly, QOL is affected by the many demanding situations and factors that are associated with older age -ranging from changes in health status to coping with new restrictions in life, and identifying new roles, opportunities, and available social support (Gurková, 2011). Demographic variables (age, gender, ethnicity), socio-economic characteristics (education, social status, income, social support...), cultural influences and values, health factors (health/medical condition, disease, functional status, health care services), and personal characteristics (e.g., coping mechanisms, self-efficacy...) can be considered to be predictors of QOL (Dragomirecká, Prajsová, 2009;Gurková, 2011;Bryła, Burzyńska, Maniecki-Bryła, 2013;Layte, Sexton, Savva, 2013;Bilgili, Arpaci, 2014;Chin, Lee, Lee, 2014;Forjaz et al, 2015).…”