Juan C. Meléndez

Psychological and physical dimensions explaining life satisfaction among the elderly: A structural model examination

The aim of the present paper is to analyze the effects of psychological well-being, physical functioning and socio-demographic factors on life satisfaction. Both a bivariate and a multivariate level of analyses have been used. Finally, a structural model explaining life satisfaction has been developed and validated. With respect to bivariate relations, there was evidence of significant positive relations between psychological well-being dimensions and life satisfaction and between physical conditions and life satisfaction as well. Also, as age increased there was a slow decrease in life satisfaction. Educational level was positively related to life satisfaction. A structural model gave valuable information about the pattern of multivariate relationships among the variables. A first result of the model was the large effect of physical and psychological well-being on life satisfaction, albeit it was psychological well-being the major predictor of life satisfaction. A second result was that the effects of socio-demographic variables on life satisfaction were low and they operated through the effects that maintain either on psychological well-being (or its individual indicators) or on physical conditions. The role gender or age played was indirect rather than direct.

Resilience and coping as predictors of general well-being in the elderly: A structural equation modeling approach

Objectives: The aims of this article are: (a) to test for the validity of the three constructs involved in the structural model; (b) to test for the effects of both coping strategies and resilient coping on well-being in a sample of elderly, by means of a structural model with latent variables; (c) to empirically study whether a brief scale of resilient coping could predict well-being over and above that predicted by the coping resources. Methods: The research is a survey design. The sample consisted of 225 non-institutionalized elderly people living in the city of Valencia (Spain). The three constructs measured were: well-being, resilient coping, and coping strategies. Results: The analyses consist of a series of alternative structural models with latent variables with resilience, problem-focused coping, and emotion-focused coping as the potential predictors of well-being as measured by Ryffs well-being scales. Due to parsimony reasons, the model retained is that with a single predictor of well-being: resilient coping. Conclusion: A latent variable measuring resilient coping is able to predict a significant and large part of the variance in well-being, without the need of including coping strategies. Results impact on well-being literature of the elderly is discussed.

Reminiscence and dementia: a therapeutic intervention

BACKGROUND Dementia is a significant public health problem. One non-pharmacological therapy that has shown its effectiveness is reminiscence, which is a psychological intervention designed to address issues of particular relevance to older adults. The aim of this study was to examine the benefits of an integrative reminiscence program in elderly people with dementia. METHODS A quasi-experimental design and purposeful sampling were conducted at two retirement homes. Forty-two elderly adults with dementia were studied to measure the effect of the therapy (23 in the experimental group and 19 in the control group). The treatment group activity was held in 10 sessions. RESULTS The treatment group significantly improved their depressive symptoms and self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, and environmental mastery. CONCLUSIONS This study provides support for the effectiveness of integrative reminiscence therapy (RT) as an intervention in people with dementia, especially in reducing depressive symptoms and improving psychological well-being, with the therapy being effective on personal and emotional variables.

Modelo de ecuaciones estructurales para predecir el bienestar y la dependencia funcional en adultos mayores de la República Dominicana

OBJETIVO: Generar un modelo estructural multifactorial que explique la dependencia funcional y el bienestar a partir de algunas caracteristicas sociodemograficas asociadas con esos dominios, en adultos mayores de la Republica Dominicana. METODOS: Estudio transversal mediante encuesta en una muestra de 1397 personas de 65 anos o mas representativa de la poblacion de adultos mayores de la Republica Dominicana. Se recabo informacion sociodemografica de los entrevistados (sexo, edad, nivel de estudios, si realizaba alguna actividad remunerada y nivel de ingresos) y los datos necesarios para calcular el indice de Barthel y las respuestas a las preguntas de las escalas del bienestar psicologico de Ryff. Para identificar las relaciones entre las variables de interes se probaron tres modelos de ecuaciones estructurales. RESULTADOS: El modelo estructural de ajuste mas satisfactorio relaciono las caracteristicas sociodemograficas con la capacidad para realizar las actividades basicas de la vida diaria (ABVD) y las dimensiones del bienestar psicologico de las escalas de Ryff sin proponer factores latentes. La capacidad predictiva del modelo para las variables endogenas fue debil. La edad se relaciono negativamente con algunas dimensiones del bienestar y con la capacidad para realizar las ABVD; el sexo se relaciono con la dimension de relaciones positivas con otros; y el nivel de estudios influyo positivamente sobre el dominio del ambiente, el crecimiento personal y el proposito en la vida, asi como en la capacidad para realizar las ABVD. CONCLUSIONES: Los modelos validados brindan informacion necesaria para desarrollar politicas orientadas a dos niveles de accion complementarios: la promocion de la autonomia de los adultos mayores y el aumento de la cobertura de los sistemas de ensenanza formal. Estos resultados respaldan la conveniencia de aumentar las inversiones en politicas sociales.

Grandparent-grandchild relationships from the children's perspective: shared activities and socialization styles.

The objective of this study is to describe the relationships between grandchildren and their favourite grandparents, by studying the socialization styles used by latter and the shared activities undertaken. The participants were 360 children between 10 and 12 years old, who completed the grandparent-grandchild relationship questionnaire of Rico, Serra and Viguer (2001) and the socialization questionnaire of Rey and Ruiz (1990). The results demonstrate the importance of gender and family line in the selection of the favourite grandparent, differences being shown in the types of shared activities and in socialization styles. It is concluded that in the majority of cases the profile of the favourite grandparent is the maternal grandmother, retired or a house wife, aged between 60-70, who lives in the same city as his/her grandchild, and who has contact with them several times a week. Furthermore, favourite grandparents get more involved with granddaughters than with grandsons, both in support and care activities and in cultural-recreational activities, and they primarily employ a democratic style. However, there are differences depending on the gender of the grandchild, with democratic principles being used more with girls and authoritarian ones with boys.

Repetition increases false recollection in older people

Aging is accompanied by an increase in false alarms on recognition tasks, and these false alarms increase with repetition in older people (but not in young people). Traditionally, this increase was thought to be due to a greater use of familiarity in older people, but it was recently pointed out that false alarms also have a clear recollection component in these people. The main objective of our study is to analyze whether the expected increase in the rate of false alarms in older people due to stimulus repetition is produced by an inadequate use of familiarity, recollection, or both processes. To do so, we carried out an associative recognition experiment using pairs of words and pairs of images (faces associated with everyday contexts), in which we analyzed whether the repetition of some of the pairs increases the rate of false alarms in older people (compared to what was found in a sample of young people), and whether this increase is due to familiarity or recollection (using a remember-know paradigm). Our results show that the increase in false alarms in older people due to repetition is produced by false recollection, calling into question both dual and single-process models of recognition. Also, older people falsely recollect details of never studied stimuli, a clear case of perceptual illusions. These results are better explained in terms of source-monitoring errors, mediated by peoples retrieval expectations.

Resilience and Coping as Predictors of Well-Being in Adults

ABSTRACT Well-being is one of the keys to successful and optimal development across the lifespan. Based on the idea that development involves changes in individuals’ adaptive capacity to meet their needs over time, the changes that occur in the second half of life require effort to adapt to the new reality. This study used a structural model to test the effects of coping strategies and resilience on well-being in a sample of 305 mid-life adults. Several constructs were measured: coping strategies, resilience, and well-being. A final model was obtained with good fit indices; psychological well-being was positively predicted by resilience and negatively by emotional coping. Moreover, positive reappraisal and avoidance form part of both coping strategies (problem-focused and emotion-focused). Considering the characteristics of the model, educational intervention programs could be developed to promote skills that favor good adaptation at this stage in the life cycle and contribute to promoting successful aging.

Effectiveness of follow-up reminiscence therapy on autobiographical memory in pathological ageing.

The objective is to examine the effects of reminiscence therapy (RT) on total, episodic and semantic autobiographical memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and Alzheimers disease (AD) groups, testing the effects of RT on different stages of autobiographical memory, and its effectiveness at follow-up. A sample composed of 43 aMCI (27 treatments, 16 controls) and 30 AD (15 treatments, 15 controls) subjects were evaluated with the Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI) test. The RT consisted of 10 sessions lasting 60 minutes each. Both groups, aMCI and AD, showed significant effects on overall autobiographical memory; aMCI showed significant main effects on episodic and semantic autobiographical memory in the treatment group, increasing scores in both cases. For AD, significant effects were observed on autobiographical episodic memory, showing an increase in the treatment group from Time 1 to follow-up; semantic memory showed a decrease in the control group from Time 1 to follow-up. Results show that RT implementation and follow-up are effective in increasing autobiographical memory in subjects with aMCI and AD.

The effects of healthy aging, amnestic mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease on recollection, familiarity and false recognition, estimated by an associative process-dissociation recognition procedure.

Given the uneven experimental results in the literature regarding whether or not familiarity declines with healthy aging and cognitive impairment, we compare four samples (healthy young people, healthy older people, older people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment - aMCI -, and older people with Alzheimers disease - AD -) on an associative recognition task, which, following the logic of the process-dissociation procedure, allowed us to obtain corrected estimates of recollection, familiarity and false recognition. The results show that familiarity does not decline with healthy aging, but it does with cognitive impairment, whereas false recognition increases with healthy aging, but declines significantly with cognitive impairment. These results support the idea that the deficits detected in recollection, familiarity, or false recognition in older people could be used as early prodromal markers of cognitive impairment.

Reminiscence functions scale: factorial structure and its relation with mental health in a sample of Spanish older adults.

BACKGROUND The reminiscence functions scale (RFS) is a 43-item self-report instrument designed to assess the use of reminiscence for different functions. This study aims, on one hand, to analyze the factorial structure and the psychometric properties of the RFS and, on the other, to examine the relationship between the functions of reminiscence and mental health. METHODS RFS scale and measures of depressive symptomology, despair, and life satisfaction were administered to a sample of persons over the age of sixty (n = 364). RESULTS After eliminating three conflictive items from the original scale, the confirmatory factor analysis results present a factorial structure comprising eight traditional factors and adequate reliability scores (from 0.73 to 0.87). Using structural equation modeling, we find that these reminiscence factors are organized in three second-order factors (self-positive, self-negative, and prosocial). Results show that the self-positive factor relates negatively and the self-negative factor relates positively with symptoms of mental health problems. CONCLUSIONS These results, on one hand, confirm that the RFS scale is a useful instrument to assess reminiscence functions in a sample of Spanish older adults and, on the other, that the three-factor model of reminiscence is a better predictor of mental health than the alternative four-factor model.