Preventive Home Visits Among Frail Community-Dwelling Older Adults. The Added Value of Follow-Up Telephone Calls.

People in need of care and support do not always find appropriate services. This paper aims to explore the content and added value of monthly follow-up telephone calls after preventive home visits. We used both monitoring data and qualitative semi-structured interviews (with older adults, formal and informal caregivers).

Transitions in robust and prefrail octogenarians after 1 year: the influence of activities of daily living, social participation, and psychological resilience on the frailty state.

Background: Knowledge opportunities lie ahead as everyday activities, social participation, and psychological resilience might be important predictors for frailty state transitioning in the oldest old. Therefore, this article aims to examine whether changes in basic-, instrumental-, advanced- activities of daily living (b-, i-, a-ADLs), social participation, and psychological resilience predict both a transition from robustness to prefrailty or frailty and vice versa among community-dwelling octogenarians over a follow-up period of one year.

Methods: To evaluate worsened and improved frailty transitions after one year in 322 octogenarians (M = 83.

Internet use and cognitive frailty in older adults: a large-scale multidimensional approach.

Unlabelled: Although research on sociodemographic correlates of internet use in older adults without and with pronounced cognitive impairment is already quite extensive, much less is known about the relationship between cognitive frailty (CF) and this behaviour. As CF is associated to multidimensional frailty aspects, this study explored the relationship between internet use and CF, operationalised as Subjective Cognitive Impairment, in older adults by means of a comprehensive explanatory model including sociodemographic factors and multiple frailty measures. The dataset included a sample of community-dwelling 60 + older adults that were included in the Belgian Ageing Studies (BAS) and that completed survey questions on (i) internet use frequency and (ii) internet activities.

Characterizing fall risk factors in Belgian older adults through machine learning: a data-driven approach.

Background: Falls are a major problem associated with ageing. Yet, fall-risk classification models identifying older adults at risk are lacking. Current screening tools show limited predictive validity to differentiate between a low- and high-risk of falling.

The impact of covid-19 lockdown on the Quality of life, meaningful activities, and frailty in community-dwelling octogenarians: A study in Belgium.

Objectives: To investigate the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on quality of life (QoL), meaningful daily activities, and (pre)frailty in community-dwelling octogenarians.

Methods: Cross-sectional design with bivariate and multiple linear regression modeling using a stepwise approach examining the level of QoL during the COVID-19 lockdown in a group of 215 community-dwelling octogenarians (M = 86.49 ± 3.

Frailty as a determinant of dental attendance among community-dwelling older adults.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the association between different levels of frailty and dental attendance among home-dwelling older adults, in Belgium.

Background: While many determinants of dental attendance among older adults have been identified, no study has focused on the role of frailty.

Materials And Methods: This was a cross-sectional study on a random sample of home-dwelling adults aged 60 and over from two Belgian cities.

Does psychological resilience mediate the relation between daily functioning and prefrailty status?

Objectives: Understanding of prefrailty's relationship with limitations in activities of daily living (ADLs) moderated by psychological resilience is needed, as resilience might support ADLs' maintenance and thus protect against frailty. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the influence of psychological resilience (using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale; CD-RISC) on the relation between ADLs and frailty status of older individuals (i.e.

The relation between age of retirement and frailty in later life? A cross-sectional study in Flemish older adults.

Background: Policymakers in several European countries, concerned about the sustainability of their pension system, have raised the statutory retirement age. While several studies investigated the effect of retirement on health, the relationship between retirement and frailty is neglected. Notwithstanding, frailty is associated with adverse outcomes.

Prefrailty: The Relationship Between Daily Activities and Social Participation in Older Persons.

Objectives: To analyze prefrailty's relationship with limitations in activities of daily living (ADLs) and restrictions in social participation.

Method: Robust (Fried 0/4; = 214; = 82.3 years [ ±2.

The association between frailty and quality of life when aging in place.

Background And Objectives: Advanced age is often associated with frailty, which in turn is associated with low quality of life. This study explores to what extent multidimensional frailty is associated with multidimensional quality of life.

Material And Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted in a sample of 336 Flemish older people aging in place.

Access to care of frail community-dwelling older adults in Belgium: a qualitative study.

Aim: This paper aims to identify barriers that frail community-dwelling older adults experience regarding access to formal care and support services.

Background: Universal access to healthcare has been set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a main goal for the post-2015 development agenda. Nevertheless, regarding access to care, particular attention has to be paid to the so-called vulnerable groups, such as (frail) older adults.

Randomized controlled trial to evaluate a prevention program for frail community-dwelling older adults: a D-SCOPE protocol.

Background: Frail community-dwelling older adults, whom might experience problems regarding physical, cognitive, psychological, social and environmental factors, are at risk for adverse outcomes such as disability, institutionalization and mortality. People in need of help do not always find their way to care and support services and are left undetected. The aim of the D-SCOPE project is to detect frail community-dwelling older adults who previously went unnoticed and to improve their access to care and support.

Frailty differences in older adults' use of informal and formal care.

Objectives: This study examines different combinations of informal and formal care use of older adults and investigates whether these combinations differ in terms of need for care (physical and psychological frailty) and enabling factors for informal and formal care use (social and environmental frailty).

Methods: Using cross-sectional data from the Belgian Ageing Studies (survey, N = 38,066 community-dwelling older adults), Latent Class Analysis (LCA) is used to identify combinations of informal and formal care use. Bivariate analyses are used to explore the relationship between the different combinations of care use and frailty.

Hopelessness, life dissatisfaction and boredom among older people.

Identifying frail older people, and in particular, people who are psychologically frail in a community setting is difficult. This article investigates predictors of psychological frailty and constructs a short and effective pre-detection tool for highly psychologically frail older people. The Belgian Ageing Studies, a cross-sectional study (n=28.

Detecting frail, older adults and identifying their strengths: results of a mixed-methods study.

Background: The debate on frailty in later life focuses primarily on deficits and their associations with adverse (health) outcomes. In addition to deficits, it may also be important to consider the abilities and resources of older adults. This study was designed to gain insights into the lived experiences of frailty among older adults to determine which strengths can balance the deficits that affect frailty.

[Detection and prevention in later life: risk profiles for physical, psychological, social and environmental frailty.].

In order to provide proactive care and support for older people attention is needed for the prevention of frailty among older adults. Subsequently, accurate case finding of those who are more at risk of becoming frail is crucial to undertake specific preventive actions. This study investigates frailty and risk profiles of frailty among older people in order to support proactive detection.

The quality of life of older people aging in place: a literature review.

Purpose: In order to cope with the challenges that are the result of an aging population, policies and services promote keeping elders in the community and letting them age in place rather than sending them to specialized institutions. Aging in place refers to the option where people can stay in their homes as they age. This policy option, however, poses various challenges and may also threaten the quality of life of the aging.

Experiences and Effects of Structurally Involving Residents in the Nursing Home by Means of Participatory Action Research: A Mixed Method Study.

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the effects of introducing participatory action research (PAR) within the nursing home (NH) on residents' quality of life (QoL) and NH experience and participation, and to explore their experiences with PAR.

Design: A mixed methods design was chosen, including a clustered randomized controlled trial (RCT) and qualitative interviews.

Setting: For the RCT, 3 NHs were randomly allocated to 3 conditions: an intervention (weekly PAR activity), an active control (weekly reminiscence-activity), or passive control (care as usual).

Identifying frailty risk profiles of home-dwelling older people: focus on sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics.

Objectives: This paper investigates risk profiles of frailty among older people, as these are essential for detecting those individuals at risk for adverse outcomes and to undertake specific preventive actions. Frailty is not only a physical problem, but also refers to emotional, social, and environmental hazards.

Methods: Using data generated from the Belgian Ageing Studies, a cross-sectional study (n = 28,049), we tested a multivariate regression model that included sociodemographic and socioeconomic indicators as well as four dimensions of frailty, for men and women separately.

Older offenders deemed criminally irresponsible in Flanders (Belgium): Descriptive results from a retrospective case note study.

Introduction: In Belgium, offenders who are deemed criminally irresponsible for their criminal actions because of mental illness or intellectual disability are subject to a specific safety measure with the dual objective of protecting society and providing mandated care to the offender. While Belgian law requires that offenders who are deemed criminally irresponsible should be in a hospital, clinic or other appropriate institution outside of prison, in practice, about one-third of all such offenders still reside in prison. Whether imprisoned or living in settings outside prison, there is a dearth of knowledge on the characteristics of the aging population among the criminally irresponsible offenders.

Is volunteering in later life impeded or stimulated by other activities?

Purpose: Volunteering among older adults has received increasing attention from researchers, policy makers, and associations. However, there remains a lack of knowledge in how volunteering is impacted by other activities in the lives of older adults. In order to understand activity engagement in later life, insights into the extent to which activities compete with or complement each other are necessary.

Municipality and Neighborhood Influences on Volunteering in Later Life.

This article explores the relationships between municipality features and volunteering by older adults. In the literature, strong evidence exists of the influence of place on older people's health. However, the question how neighborhoods and municipalities promote or hinder volunteer participation remains under-explored.

Relationships between the perceived neighborhood social environment and walking for transportation among older adults.

Ecological models state that physical activity (PA) behaviors can be explained by the interplay between individuals and their surrounding physical and social environment. However, the majority of research on PA-environment relationships has focused upon the physical environment. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between the perceived social environment and older adults' walking for transportation, while adjusting for individual and perceived physical environmental factors.

Treatment and Control: A Qualitative Study of Older Mentally Ill Offenders' Perceptions on Their Detention and Care Trajectory.

The life of older mentally ill offenders (OMIOs) is often characterized by successive periods of detention in correctional facilities, admissions to psychiatric services, and unsuccessful attempts to live independently. Through in-depth interviews, eight personal stories from OMIOs under supervision of the commission of social defence in Ghent (Belgium) were analyzed in the phenomenological research tradition. The results of the study reveal that OMIOs had more positive and less negative experiences in prison settings when compared with other institutional care settings.