Executive functioning independently predicts self-rated health and improvement in self-rated health over time among community-dwelling older adults.

Objectives: Self-rated health, as distinct from objective measures of health, is a clinically informative metric among older adults. The purpose of our study was to examine the cognitive and psychosocial factors associated with self-rated health.

Methods: 624 participants over the age of 60 were assessed at baseline, and of these, 510 were contacted for a follow-up two years later.

Perceived health status is associated with hours of exercise per week in older adults independent of physical health.

Background: Perceived health status does not always reflect actual health status. We investigated the association between objective and self-rated measures of health status and hours of exercise per week in older adults.

Method: As part of the TRIL clinic assessment, we gathered information from 473 community dwelling adults over the age of 65, regarding hours spent per week exercising, depression, personality, perceived health status, and objective health status (in the form of a comorbidity count).

Perceived stress mediates the relationship between emotional loneliness and sleep quality over time in older adults.

Objective: Both loneliness and poor sleep quality are common occurrences in late life and both are detrimental to physical and mental health. While loneliness may be difficult to intervene upon, there may be correlated factors, which, if alleviated, could mitigate the effects of loneliness and sleep quality on health in late life.

Design: A longitudinal, observational study whereby we gathered predictive variables at baseline and dependent variable (sleep) at follow-up.

Teleconferencing as a source of social support for older spousal caregivers: initial explorations and recommendations for future research.

Teleconferencing is increasingly being used as a medium of delivering social support for dementia caregivers. Further direction is required from pilot studies before the optimal clinical service can be delivered. Following a 6-week pilot support group for spousal caregivers, delivered via teleconferencing software, we interviewed 8 participants for their feedback.

Orthostatic hypotension and subjective sleep quality in older people.

Poor sleep quality and orthostatic hypotension are common complaints in an older population, and both are related to factors such as polypharmacy and depression. However, it is not known whether there is a direct association between the two. Our objective is to investigate a potential association between orthostatic blood pressure response and subjective sleep quality in older people.

Exercise and social support are associated with psychological distress outcomes in a population of community-dwelling older adults.

Exercise reduces the likelihood of psychological distress, but this may be due to incidental socializing. We gathered information on exercise, social support and three aspects of psychological distress from 583 community-dwelling older adults. Exercise and social support from friends were both associated with lower scores of depression, anxiety and perceived stress.

The sound of the crowd: auditory information modulates the perceived emotion of a crowd based on bodily expressions.

Although both auditory and visual information can influence the perceived emotion of an individual, how these modalities contribute to the perceived emotion of a crowd of characters was hitherto unknown. Here, we manipulated the ambiguity of the emotion of either a visual or auditory crowd of characters by varying the proportions of characters expressing one of two emotional states. Using an intersensory bias paradigm, unambiguous emotional information from an unattended modality was presented while participants determined the emotion of a crowd in an attended, but different, modality.

Psychological distress as a key component of psychosocial functioning in community-dwelling older people.

Objectives: To explore the key components representative of measures of psychosocial functioning with a focus on identifying the constituents of psychological distress in an Irish sample of community-dwelling older adults and to examine the relationship between these components and health outcomes such as frailty.

Method: Cross-sectional observational study at the Technology Research for Independent Living (TRIL) Clinic, a comprehensive geriatric assessment facility in St. James's Hospital, Dublin.

Perceiving emotion in crowds: the role of dynamic body postures on the perception of emotion in crowded scenes.

Although the perception of emotion in individuals is an important social skill, very little is known about how emotion is determined from a crowd of individuals. We investigated the perception of emotion in scenes of crowds populated by dynamic characters each expressing an emotion. Facial expressions were masked in these characters and emotion was conveyed using body motion and posture only.