Do changes in frailty, physical functioning, and cognitive functioning predict mortality in old age? Results from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam.

Background: The ability to accurately predict survival in older adults is crucial as it guides clinical decision making. The added value of using various health indicators as well as changes in these indicators for predicting mortality remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate whether changes in health indicators such as frailty and physical performance improve mortality predictions in old age.

Reablement through time and space: a scoping review of how the concept of 'reablement' for older people has been defined and operationalised.

Background: While the field of rehabilitation has determined a common definition of professional practice, legislators and healthcare professionals in various Western countries have struggled to reach consensus about how the newer offer of 'reablement' should be organised, operationalised, and understood as a health service for older adults. International research indicates that there is confusion, ambiguity, and disagreement about the terminology and the structure of these programmes, and they may not be adequately supporting older people's self-identified goals. Could an analysis of the concept's genealogy illuminate how reablement can be more effective and beneficial in theory and in practice?

Methods: We conducted a qualitative and quantitative scoping review to determine how reablement has developed through time and space.

Correction: Religion, faith, and spirituality influences on HIV prevention activities: A scoping review.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

'Standing together - at a distance': Documenting changes in mental-health indicators in Denmark during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is a need to document the mental-health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated societal lockdowns. We initiated a large mixed-methods data collection, focusing on crisis-specific worries and mental-health indicators during the lockdown in Denmark. The study incorporated five data sources, including quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews.

[Screening tools do not measure up against rigorous history taking].

Provision of appropriate care services for older adults is a challenge for contemporary medical practice, especially for cases where elderly patients present in an emergency department. Manifold questionnaires, inventories and screening tools have been developed to identify those who are at an increased risk of adverse outcomes. The complex problems with which older adults present are difficult to capture in these standardized instruments, whereas the prognostic accuracy is insufficient for personalized risk estimation.

Do psychosocial factors modify the negative association between disability and life satisfaction in old age?

Context: Many assume that having poor physical health in old age lowers life satisfaction, but in fact there are large differences in life satisfaction among older people who experience disability.

Objective: To investigate whether psychosocial factors modify the negative association between disability and life satisfaction in older people and whether these differ across the life course.

Design: Cross sectional study.

The added value of health indicators to mortality predictions in old age: A systematic review.

Background: Numerous risk prediction models use indicators of health to predict mortality in old age. The added value to mortality predictions based on demographic variables is unknown.

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of health indicators in predicting all-cause mortality among individuals aged 50+ using area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC).

Discrimination ability of comorbidity, frailty, and subjective health to predict mortality in community-dwelling older people: Population based prospective cohort study.

Objective: To investigate the added value of comorbidity, frailty, and subjective health to mortality predictions in community-dwelling older people and whether it changes with increasing age.

Participants: 36,751 community-dwelling subjects aged 50-100 from the longitudinal Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe.

Methods: Mortality risk associated with Comorbidity Index, Frailty Index, Frailty Phenotype, and subjective health was analysed using Cox regression.

When Contact Is Not Enough: Affecting First Year Medical Students' Image towards Older Persons.

Context: Many medical schools have initiated care internships to familiarize their students with older persons and to instil a professional attitude.

Objective: To examine the impact of care internships on the image that first-year medical students have of older persons and to explore the underlying concepts that may play a role in shaping this image.

Design: Survey before and after a two-week compulsory care internship using the Aging Semantic Differential (ASD; 32 adjectives) and the Attitudes toward Old People (AOP; 34 positions) questionnaires.

Successful ageing: A study of the literature using citation network analysis.

Background: Ageing is accompanied by an increased risk of disease and a loss of functioning on several bodily and mental domains and some argue that maintaining health and functioning is essential for a successful old age. Paradoxically, studies have shown that overall wellbeing follows a curvilinear pattern with the lowest point at middle age but increases thereafter up to very old age.

Objective: To shed further light on this paradox, we reviewed the existing literature on how scholars define successful ageing and how they weigh the contribution of health and functioning to define success.