Mindfulness-Based Group Therapy for Chronic Pain Management in Older Adults.

Objectives: There were two quality improvement goals for this project: (1) to evaluate the outcomes of an 8-week geriatric-focused mindfulness-based group therapy program for chronic pain management called "Mindfulness-based Chronic Pain Care" offered at a senior community center affiliated with a geriatric primary care clinic, and (2) to obtain feedback from participants to make relevant modifications for future groups.

Methods: The program consisted of eight 150-minute weekly sessions. Thirteen community-dwelling older adults aged 60 and older participated in the program.

Assisted Living Residents' Sense of Belonging and Psychosocial Outcomes.

Little is known about the psychosocial adjustment of older adults in the assisted living environment. A sense of belonging has been linked to psychological health and a lack of belonging could lead to loneliness. We conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study to examine relationships between social engagement, sense of belonging, and psychological outcomes.

Conflict in Skipped Generation Households in Thailand.

A common phenomenon in rural Thailand is that adult children migrate to find work and leave their children behind in the care of their grandparents. The resulting living arrangement is referred to as a . This arrangement can benefit the intergenerational family but can also be associated with conflict.

A systematic review of dyadic approaches to reminiscence and life review among older adults.

This paper describes a systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies that examine the effectiveness of dyadic approaches to life review and reminiscence. The search process began with 1,056 potentially eligible articles and, after a multi-step screening process, led to 20 full-text articles for review. The resulting studies (ten quantitative, nine qualitative, and one mixed-method) comprised six different kinds of dyadic approaches.

The effectiveness of a couple-based intervention for people living with mild Alzheimer's disease and their spousal caregivers in Korea.

Background And Objectives: We evaluated the effectiveness of a Korean version of the Couples Life Story Approach (CLSA-K), a structured life-review program originally developed in the U.S. to help older adults with dementia and their spousal caregivers engage with each other and improve their quality of life.

Cultural Adaptation of a Dyadic Intervention for Korean Couples Coping with Alzheimer's Disease.

Objectives: The Couples Life Story Approach (CLSA) was recently developed in the U.S. for older couples dealing with dementia to improve their quality of life.

Mindfulness-based forgiveness groups for older adults.

Interventions that enable individuals to be more forgiving toward themselves and others are important for older adults. This article describes a group intervention for adults aged 60 or older that integrates forgiveness-related skills with a mindfulness approach. The Mindfulness-based Forgiveness Group was designed to meet for eight sessions.

Health and Social-Physical Environment Profiles Among Older Adults Living Alone: Associations With Depressive Symptoms.

Objectives: We examined differences in depressive symptoms among people 65 and older who live alone, exploring whether these differences are associated with both health and environmental contexts.

Method: Data are from the 2006 wave of Health Retirement Study (N = 2,956, age range: 65-104). We used a two-step cluster analytical approach to identify subgroups of health-limitation profiles and environmental profiles.

"We are a Team": Couple Identity and Memory Loss.

Couplehood can be an important source of resilience in the face of memory loss, but couple identity has only recently been explored and has rarely been measured. This paper examines older spouses' descriptions of their couple identity and discusses salient themes. Data come from 19 couples from the Couples Life Story Project, a life review intervention where one partner has memory loss.

Qualitative Analysis of the Experience of Mental Fatigue of Family Caregivers of Patients With Cancer in Phase I Trials.

Purpose/objectives: To examine family caregivers' experience of mental fatigue, identify strategies they use to manage it, and ascertain the kind of help they would like from healthcare professionals.
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Research Approach: Descriptive, qualitative study that was part of a larger mixed-methods study.

Care Transition Experiences of Older Veterans and Their Caregivers.

This study's main objective was to examine care transition experiences of older veterans and their caregivers. Fifty patients age 65 years and older, discharged from a Veterans Affairs Medical Center hospital, completed the Care Transitions Measure-15 survey three to four weeks postdischarge. Seven patients and six caregivers participated in semistructured interviews.

Support for and From Aging Mothers Whose Adult Daughters are Seriously Mentally Ill.

This article discusses, from the grandmother's perspective, the ways in which support is exchanged in families coping with serious mental illness. A strengths perspective was utilized to identify ways in which family members help each other. Employing a qualitative approach, this study focuses on interviews obtained from a sample of 22 aging mothers, aged 52-90, who are in contact with their daughters who have a mental illness.

Constructing Couples' Stories: Narrative Practice Insights from a Dyadic Dementia Intervention.

Memory loss and dementia can be devastating for both caregivers and care recipients. Narrative therapeutic approaches offer promise, as well as challenges, for social interventions with couples where one partner has dementia. The Couples Life Story Approach is a recently-developed method by which practitioners work with such couples to help them narrate the story of their life together.

Creating a duet: The Couples Life Story Approach in the United States and Japan.

There is a global need for interventions that help couples who are dealing with dementia. This paper describes the way in which interventionists from the United States and Japan participated in the development of an intervention for dyads in which one person is experiencing memory loss. The 5-week intervention, the Couples Life Story Approach, helps dyads to reminisce about their life together as a couple, to work on their patterns of communication, and to develop a Life Story Book.

Receipt of care and depressive symptoms in later life: the importance of self-perceptions of aging.

Objectives: This study examines the extent to which self-perceptions of aging and perceived loss of control explain the relationship between the receipt of care and depressive symptoms among older adults.

Methods: The sample consists of individuals aged 51 and older from the 2006, 2008, and 2010 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (n = 5,938). Structural equation modeling was used to test an analytic model that focused on the mediating effects of self-perceptions of aging and perceived loss of control.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy with older adults: an exploratory study.

An 8-week mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) group for older adults with depression and/or anxiety is described. This article is based on an exploratory study of this therapeutic approach and changes in participants' symptoms associated with participation. Pre-post data from 5 MBCT groups showed significant improvements in reported anxiety, ruminative thoughts, and sleep problems and a reduction in depressive symptoms.

The couples life story approach: a dyadic intervention for dementia.

This article describes an approach for working with individuals who have dementia, along with their spouses or partners. The 5-week intervention focuses on helping couples communicate, reminisce about the story of their relationship, find photographs and mementoes from their past, and develop a book that incorporates these mementoes. This clinical approach highlights the strengths and the resilience of couples and adds to the limited repertoire of dyadic interventions for dementia care which are currently available.

Forgiving and feeling forgiven in late adulthood.

Enright and colleagues (1996) emphasized the beneficial effect of experiencing forgiveness across multiple domains. We build upon their conceptualization of forgiveness by adding a domain--forgiveness by God--to create global forgiveness. In the current study, we use data from a nationally representative study, the Religion, Aging and Health Survey, which utilizes the responses of 1208 Blacks and Whites.

Balancing eldercare and employment: the role of work interruptions and supportive employers.

This study investigates pathways by which employed caregivers' stress is related to their work performance appraisal, with particular attention to work interruptions and supportive employers. Based on a nationally representative sample from the 2004 National Long-Term Care Survey (NLTCS), the study focuses on caregivers to older adults who are currently participating in paid employment (N = 652). Results from structural equation modeling indicate that work interruptions mediate the relationship between caregivers' stress and their work performance appraisal.

The relationships among family, friends, and psychological well-being for Thai elderly.

Objectives: The extent to which family and friends contribute to psychological well-being (PWB) may be subject to cultural variability. This study examines the mechanisms by which relationships with family and friends contribute to PWB among Thai elders.

Method: Interviews were conducted with 469 men and women aged 60 and older in Nan Province, Thailand.

Intergenerational Ambivalence: Aging Mothers Whose Adult Daughters are Mentally Ill.

Research on families dealing with mental illness has considered either positive or negative aspects of intergenerational family relationships. The current study extends this work by using intergenerational ambivalence theory to examine aging mothers' contradictory expectations toward adult daughters who are mentally ill. This study focuses on interviews obtained from a sample of 22 mothers aged 52-90 who expressed considerable sociological ambivalence in relation to their grown daughters.

The development of culturally-sensitive measures for research on ageing.

Attempts to import existing measures developed in other countries when constructing research instruments for use with older people can result in several problems including inappropriate wording, unsuitable response sets, and insufficient attention to cultural nuances. This paper addresses such problems by discussing a mixed methods approach to measurement development (i.e.

Moderators in the relationship between social contact and psychological distress among widowed adults.

Objectives: This study examines: (1) the effect of widowed persons' frequency of contact with friends and relatives on their depressive and grief symptoms six months following spousal loss and (2) the extent to which the effects of social contact are contingent upon the degree of emotional support received from these relationships and the congruence between widowed persons' preferred and actual levels of social contact.

Method: Analyses are based on the Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) study, a prospective study of a two-stage area probability sample of 1532 married men and women aged 65 or older. Depressive and grief symptoms, six months after spousal loss, were regressed on social contact, support, and congruence between preferred and actual social contact.

Unforgiveness, rumination, and depressive symptoms among older adults.

The experience of feeling unforgiven for past transgressions may contribute to depressive symptoms in later life. This article tests a model in which feeling unforgiven by God and by other people have direct effects on depressive symptoms while self-unforgiveness and rumination mediate this relationship. The sample consisted of 965 men and women aged 67 and older who participated in a national probability sample survey, the Religion, Aging, and Health survey.

Enhancing forgiveness: a group intervention for the elderly.

This article describes a therapeutic model of forgiveness (Enright, 2001) and discusses its applicability to social work intervention with older adults. A total of 20 men and women, aged 57-82, participated in 2 different forgiveness groups, each of which met weekly for 8 sessions with a 4-month follow-up session. Measures of forgiveness, as well as biopsychosocial functioning, were collected before and after the group intervention.