Publications by authors named "Alexandra Mayhew"
Article Synopsis
- Muscular strength, particularly measured by handgrip strength (HGS), is an important indicator of health and a predictor of age-related diseases, but no international benchmarks exist for HGS across different ages and sexes.
- The study systematically analyzed data from over 2.4 million adults across 69 countries to establish sex- and age-specific norms for HGS, identifying a peak in strength between ages 30 and 39 before a gradual decline.
- Findings revealed that while absolute and body size-normalized HGS improves slightly in early adulthood, a more significant drop occurs from middle to late adulthood, with males generally experiencing a faster decline than females.
Objectives: To investigate inequalities in transitions to home care across a broad set of demographic and socioeconomic factors in Canadian middle-aged and older adults.
Design: Longitudinal, retrospective cohort study.
Setting And Participants: A total of 51,338 community-dwelling adults aged 45+ years, using national data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging across 3 timepoints from 2011 to 2021.
Objective: To describe the prevalence of multimorbidity among individuals with primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) and early menopause compared with those with the average age of menopause.
Design: Prospective cohort.
Setting: Outpatient communities across ten provinces across Canada, available from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.
Article Synopsis
- The study examined the prevalence and impact of 12 modifiable risk factors for dementia among middle-aged and older Canadians, using data from a large sample of 30,097 adults aged 45 to 85.
- Key findings included high rates of physical inactivity, hypertension, and obesity, with physical inactivity being the most significant contributor to dementia risk.
- The research emphasizes the need for tailored dementia prevention strategies in Canada, as socioeconomic status influenced the prevalence of risk factors and their potential impact on dementia cases.
Objectives: To examine the impact of two key choices when conducting a network analysis (clustering methods and measure of association) on the number and type of multimorbidity clusters.
Study Design And Setting: Using cross-sectional self-reported data on 24 diseases from 30,097 community-living adults aged 45-85 from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, we conducted network analyses using 5 clustering methods and 11 association measures commonly used in multimorbidity studies. We compared the similarity among clusters using the adjusted Rand index (ARI); an ARI of 0 is equivalent to the diseases being randomly assigned to clusters, and 1 indicates perfect agreement.
Article Synopsis
- The increasing prevalence of neurocognitive disorders (NCDs), such as mild cognitive impairment and dementia, highlights the urgent need for global prevention strategies.
- An umbrella review synthesized findings from 45 reviews and 212 meta-analyses, identifying 14 modifiable risk factors linked to NCDs, including alcohol consumption, depression, and physical inactivity.
- The study emphasizes the need for targeted prevention efforts that address these risk factors to reduce the incidence and severity of NCDs, particularly noting gaps in research related to vascular dementia and mild NCD.
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To quantify inconsistent self-reporting of chronic conditions between the baseline (2011-2015) and first follow-up surveys (2015-2018) in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), and to explore methods to resolve inconsistent responses and impact on multimorbidity.
Methods: Community-dwelling adults aged 45-85 years in the baseline and first follow-up surveys were included ( = 45,184). At each survey, participants self-reported whether they ever had a physician diagnosis of 35 chronic conditions.
Introduction: In population-based research, disease ascertainment algorithms can be as accurate as, and less costly than, performing supplementary clinical examinations on selected participants to confirm a diagnosis of a neurocognitive disorder (NCD), but they require cohort-specific validation. To optimise the use of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) to understand the epidemiology and burden of NCDs, the CLSA Memory Study will validate an NCD ascertainment algorithm to identify CLSA participants with these disorders using routinely acquired study data.
Methods And Analysis: Up to 600 CLSA participants with equal numbers of those likely to have no NCD, mild NCD or major NCD based on prior self-reported physician diagnosis of a memory problem or dementia, medication consumption (ie, cholinesterase inhibitors, memantine) and/or self-reported function will be recruited during the follow-up 3 CLSA evaluations (started August 2021).
Background: Chronic cough is a common troublesome condition, but it is unclear whether dry or productive chronic cough and sex, impacts the burden of cough differently.
Methods: The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging is a nationally generalizable, stratified random sample of adults aged 45-85 years. Chronic cough was identified based on a self-reported daily cough in the last 12 months assessed at baseline (2011-2015) and follow-up (2015-2018).
Article Synopsis
- Antibiotic use during the COVID-19 pandemic was prevalent, with 67% of hospitalized patients receiving them, but a significant 80% of these prescriptions were given to patients without confirmed bacterial coinfections.
- The study conducted a systematic review across several databases, focusing on antibiotic prescribing patterns in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, and used meta-analysis to pool results.
- Findings indicate that overprescribing antibiotics can contribute to increased antimicrobial resistance, and there was considerable variation in prescribing practices across different income-level countries and pandemic phases.
Background: The aim is to investigate whether social isolation and loneliness are associated with changes in grip strength, gait speed, BMD, and fractures.
Methods: Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) Comprehensive Cohort participants aged 65 years and older at baseline (2012-2015) who completed the three-year follow-up interview (2015-2018) were included in this analysis (n = 11,344). Social isolation and loneliness were measured using the CLSA social isolation index (CLSA-SII, range 0-10).
Background: Previous sarcopenia definitions have poor discriminatory accuracy for identifying people with/without relevant health outcomes, and poor agreement between methods of operationalizing sarcopenia criterion. The 2020 Sarcopenia Definitions and Outcomes Consortium (SDOC) definition recommends grip strength (absolute, or standardized to body mass index, total body fat, lean arm mass, or weight), and gait speed. The agreement between methods of operationalizing grip strength and discriminatory accuracy of the SDOC definition for health outcomes such as activities of daily living (ADL) disability is unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: decreased muscle strength and physical function often precede disability, nursing home admission, home care use and mortality in older adults. Normative values for commonly used physical performance-based tests are not widely available for older adults but are required for clinicians and researchers to easily identify individuals with low performance.
Objective: to develop normative values for grip strength, gait speed, timed up and go, single-leg balance and five-repetition chair rise tests in a large population-based sample of Canadians aged 45-85 years.
Article Synopsis
- The study explores the reliability of performance-based mobility tests (like TUG and gait speed) in different age groups within aging populations.
- It involved a sample of 147 participants aged 50 and up, examining how variations in assessment protocols affect reliability.
- Results indicated that certain protocols, like TUG fast pace and chair-rise with arms allowed, showed better reliability, particularly in younger seniors, providing valuable insights for improving tests in geriatric assessments.
Background: The Life-Space Assessment (LSA) can compliment traditional physical performance measures of mobility by accounting for the interaction between individuals and their environment. However, there are no studies that have generated percentile curves showing sex-stratified reference values in a large population-based sample of community-dwelling adults, making its interpretation difficult. Therefore, this study aimed to establish sex-stratified reference values for the LSA in middle-aged and older Canadians.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Chronic cough is a common troublesome condition and accounts for a high burden on quality of life. Previous data investigating the mortality associated with chronic cough has been derived in patients with chronic bronchitis. No data exists on chronic dry cough.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Population-based chronic disease surveillance systems were likely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this study was to examine the immediate and ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the claims-based incidence of dementia.
Methods: We conducted a population-based time series analysis from January 2015 to December 2021 in Ontario, Canada.
Objective: To describe and identify factors influencing mobility among older adults during the first 5 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design: A cross-sectional telesurvey.
Setting: Community dwelling older adults, situated within the first 5 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Hamilton, Canada.
Background: Chronic cough is a common troublesome condition, but risk factors for developing chronic cough are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to understand the relationship between mental health disorders, personality traits and chronic cough.
Methods: The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging is a prospective, nationally generalisable, random sample of adults aged 45-85 years at baseline recruited between 2011 and 2015, and followed-up 3 years later.
Background: Guidelines for fall prevention in older adults recommend mobility screening for fall risk assessment; however, there is no consensus on which test to use and at what cutoff. This study aimed to determine the accuracy and optimal cut-off values of commonly used mobility tests for predicting falls in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA).
Methods: Mobility tests at baseline included the Timed Up and Go (TUG), Single Leg Stance (SLS), chair-rise and gait speed.
Objectives: Body composition changes that occur with aging pose unique health risks to older adults. The current World Health Organization (WHO) body mass index (BMI) cut-points may not accurately reflect health risks in older adults (65+). Prior findings suggest those classified as overweight may be conferred survival advantages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To examine: (1) the associations of functional disability and behavioural risk factors with social participation; and (2) whether the association between functional disability and social participation is modified by co-occurrence of behavioural risk factors.
Design: A cross-sectional analysis of data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.
Setting: A national stratified sample of 51 388 individuals living in the 10 Canadian provinces at the time of baseline data collection (2011-2015).