Positive View On Aging May Help Recovery From Severe Disability

New research from the US finds that older people who have a positive view on aging are more likely to recover from severe disability than those who hold negative stereotypes about being older. It calls for more studies to investigate whether promoting positive age stereotypes extends independent living later in life.

Reporting in JAMA this week, the researchers, from Yale School of Public Health, say their study is the first to examine the link between positive age stereotypes and recovery from disability in older persons.

Lead author Becca R. Levy is associate professor of epidemiology (chronic diseases) and of psychology, and is also director of the School's division of social and behavioral sciences. She tells the press in a statement that the findings suggest "how the old view their aging process could have an effect on how they experience it".

"In previous studies, we have found that older individuals with positive age stereotypes tend to show lower cardiovascular response to stress and they tend to engage in healthier activities, which may help to explain our current findings," she adds.

She and her colleagues explain in their background information how few studies have looked at why some older people recover from disability and others do not.

"We considered a new culture-based explanatory factor: age stereotypes (defined as beliefs about old people as a category)," they write.

For their study, they compared participants with different views of aging, categorizing them as having either a positive stereotype or a negative stereotype. Altogether there were 598 individuals, all at least aged 70, and free of disability at the start of the study, which covered about 11 years. They were members of a health plan in greater New Haven, Connecticut.

From March 1998 to December 2008, the participants were interviewed monthly, and they also underwent home-based assessment every 18 months.

The researchers based their measure of recovery on participants being able to carry out four activities of daily living (ADLs): bathing, dressing, moving from a chair, and walking. Doing well in these activities is linked to lower use of healthcare and longevity.

They assessed age stereotypes from responses to the question, "when you think of old persons, what are the first 5 words or phrases that come to mind?"

They scored the responses from 1 for the most negative (eg "decrepit"), to 5 for the most positive (eg "spry") and then averaged them.

The researchers found participants with a positive age stereotype were 44% more likely to fully recover from severe disability than those with a negative age stereotype.

Those with a positive view on aging also showed a significantly lower rate of decline in ability to perform their daily tasks.

The researchers suggest:

"Positive age stereotypes may promote recovery from disability through several pathways: limiting cardiovascular response to stress, improving physical balance, enhancing self-efficacy, and increasing engagement in healthy behaviors."

"Further research is needed to determine whether interventions to promote positive age stereotypes could extend independent living in later life," they urge.

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Strategies To Prevent Noise-Induced Hearing Loss, Tinnitus In Soldiers To Be Presented

Antioxidants, dietary supplements and high-tech brain imaging are among some of the novel strategies that may help detect, treat and even prevent noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus among American troops, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital.

A culmination of nearly 25 years of research on noise-induced hearing loss - a growing medical issue that affects more than 12 percent of American troops returning from conflicts around the globe - will be presented Sept. 9 at the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Led by Michael Seidman, M.D., the research team is the first to identify how acoustic trauma from machinery and explosive devices damages the inner ear cells and breaks down cell growth, much like age-related hearing loss.

"Improvised explosive devices, aircraft and other weaponry being used by the military are frankly deafening our troops," says Dr. Seidman, director of the Division of Otologic/Neurotologic Surgery in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at Henry Ford Hospital.

"Noise-induced hearing loss doesn't just impact a person's ability to hear; it can cause balance issues, make it difficult to sleep and communicate, and even raise the risk for heart disease by increasing a person's blood pressure, lipids and blood sugar."

As part of his presentation, Dr. Seidman will explain how noise-induced hearing loss, as well as tinnitus-related traumatic brain injury, occurs based on research from Wayne State University's Jinsheng Zhang, Ph.D.

Dr. Zhang has developed a model of blast-induced tinnitus and hearing loss using a shock tube that generates a 194 decibel shock wave similar to many of the explosive devices being deployed against troops.

Further, Dr. Seidman will discuss the use of nutraceuticals, such as acetyl-l-carnitine, alpha lipoic acid and resveratrol - a substance found in red wine and red grapes - to mitigate hearing-related issues.

Based on initial results, Dr. Seidman says a nutraceutical with a resveratrol-based component may possibly hold the potential to not only prevent, but reverse hearing loss in certain circumstances for soldiers. This research is based on animal models, but will soon be tested with humans, to see if a pill could soon be developed to prevent acoustic trauma in troops.

In addition, Dr. Seidman will highlight new research on tinnitus, a chronic ringing of the head or ears that affects more than 50 million patients.

A study co-authored by Susan Bowyer, Ph.D., senior bioscientific researcher at Henry Ford Hospital, found that an imaging technique called magnetoencephalography (MEG) can determine the site of perception of tinnitus in the brain, which could in turn allow physicians to target the area with electrical or chemical therapies to lessen symptoms.

Although is no cure for tinnitus, several interventions are available, including dietary modification, the use of specific herbs and supplements, sound therapies, centrally acting medications and electrical stimulation of the cochlea and brain using implantable electrodes and an implantable pulse generator.

To date, Dr. Seidman has treated six patients with direct electrical stimulation to the brain, reducing the tinnitus in four of those patients.

In all, the team's work on noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus has led to more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and several patents.

According to Dr. Seidman, more research and funding are needed in order to generate critical data to facilitate an understanding of the damage caused by acoustic trauma and develop strategies to mitigate that damage.

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