Publications by authors named "M J F J Vernooij-Dassen"
The concept of social health has recently received increasing attention in dementia research. Various notions of what social health is and how it can be measured are circulating. They may pose challenges for comparing results and interpreting them for the development of interventions.
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- Social health in dementia is gaining attention, highlighting the need for understanding social health markers that can aid in developing interventions and measures.
- An international qualitative study across six countries (Australia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Poland, Netherlands) involved interviews with various stakeholders, including people with dementia and caregivers, to identify both known and new social health markers.
- The study identified 67 participants and revealed social health markers such as loneliness and novel concepts like compliance with social norms and the role of social networks, emphasizing the importance of both individual and social environmental factors in dementia care.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how social health factors, like marital status and loneliness, are connected to the immune system and dementia risk in older adults.
- Researchers measured various immune cell counts and neurodegeneration markers in a group of 8,374 participants over several years to analyze these relationships.
- Findings suggest that being never married is linked to higher markers of immune imbalance and neurodegeneration, particularly in males, while social support shows mixed effects on immune system measures between genders.
Article Synopsis
- This study investigates how social health markers at the start can impact cognitive ability and decline over 11 to 18 years in older adults across different studies.
- Utilizing data from nearly 17,000 participants, researchers employed multilevel models to link social health factors to cognitive functions like executive function and memory.
- Results show that while good social health is generally linked to better cognitive capability, the strength of these associations varies by specific social factors and across different studies, indicating a need for tailored interventions.