Mary Gilhooly

Age-of-acquisition effects in lexical and episodic memory tasks

This paper reports four experiments on the effects of word age of acquisition in verbal tasks. In all cases, multiple-regression analysis was used to assess the relative effects of age as opposed to other potentially relevant word attributes. Experiments 1 and 2 concerned lexical memory tasks. In Experiment 1, picture naming speeds were found to be mainly determined by picture codability and name age of acquisition. In Experiment 2, it was found that when subjects produced words in response to bigram cues, early acquired target words were more likely to be produced than later acquired words, even when frequency and other word attributes were taken into account. The remaining two experiments dealt with the episodic memory tasks of free recall and recognition. No age effects were found in these tasks. It was concluded that early age of acquisition facilitates retrieval from lexical memory but has no significant effect in episodic memory tasks.

Anticipatory grief: a review

In this review the term anticipatory grief is defined and described. Misconceptions about the reaction which may have been applied in previous literature are noted and their origin discussed. Empirical studies of the impact of an anticipatory grief reaction on subsequent adjustment are presented, with a discussion of the reasons for their disparate results and suggestions for future research. The relevance to the clinician of the anticipatory grief reaction in both family and professional caregivers is considered.

Doctor, am I Dead? A Review of Social Death in Modern Societies:

In this article the concept of social death as defined by authors from various disciplines is described within the framework of the transition from life to death. The notion of social death as being complementary to such concepts as “personhood” and “a worthwhile life” is presented. Three examples of people likely to be seen as socially dead before they are biologically dead are presented: those in the final stages of a lengthy terminal physical illness, the very old, and those suffering from loss of their essential personhood because of dementia or coma. The moral dimensions of the social death phenomenon and the implications for current medical practice are considered in the conclusion.

Medical records: practicalities and principles of patient possession.

This review of issues and research is in two parts: 1) practical problems surrounding patient-held records and 2) ethical arguments for and against patient-held records. We argue that research on patient-held records indicates that there are no substantial practical drawbacks and considerable ethical benefits to be derived from giving patients custody of their medical records.

Factors used in the detection of elder financial abuse: A judgement and decision-making study of social workers and their managers

Factors social workers use in practice to detect elder financial abuse are currently unknown. A critical incident technique was applied within a judgement analysis approach to elicit cue use. Only three factors were key to decision-making: who raises concern, the elder’s mental capacity and the nature of the financial anomaly occurring.

Non-attendance at periodontal clinics: forgetting and administrative failure

Using a case-control design, non-attenders and attenders at a periodontal clinic were sent postal questionnaires in order to compare the sociodemographic characteristics of non-attenders and attenders. Non-attenders were also asked why they failed to attend. The main reason given was that they had forgotten about their appointment. Administrative error was the second most frequent category of response explaining non-attendance. Differences in sociodemographic characteristics between attenders and non-attenders did not appear to explain non-attendance, apart from car and telephone ownership. Time between notice of an appointment and the way patients received their appointments was associated with non-attendance. Non-attenders viewed their problem as less serious than attenders.

Family care of the dementing elderly

This paper is in two parts. In the first part we review the findings from ‘first generation’ studies of family care of the dementing elderly. First generation studies tended to trawl the topic, with a few questions asked about many aspects of care; they were largely descriptive and rarely involved hypothesis testing. The first generation studies are examined in relation to eight questions: (1) Is caring for a dementing person stressful? (2) Is caring for someone with dementia more stressful than caring for someone with some other disorder? (3) Which aspects of dementia are most problematic for caregivers? (4) Is level of impairment associated with level of experienced burden? (5) What role do family members apart from the main caregiver play? (6) Are there gender differences in amount of help received or coping? (7) What impact does the provision of services have on carers? (8) What are the predictors of the break-down of family care? Second generation studies are those in which many questions are asked i...

A meta-review of stress, coping and interventions in dementia and dementia caregiving

BackgroundThere has been a substantial number of systematic reviews of stress, coping and interventions for people with dementia and their caregivers. This paper provides a meta-review of this literature 1988-2014.MethodA meta-review was carried out of systematic reviews of stress, coping and interventions for people with dementia and their caregivers, using SCOPUS, Google Scholar and CINAHL Plus databases and manual searches.ResultsThe meta-review identified 45 systematic reviews, of which 15 were meta-analyses. Thirty one reviews addressed the effects of interventions and 14 addressed the results of correlational studies of factors associated with stress and coping. Of the 31 systematic reviews dealing with intervention studies, 22 focused on caregivers, 6 focused on people with dementia and 3 addressed both groups. Overall, benefits in terms of psychological measures of mental health and depression were generally found for the use of problem focused coping strategies and acceptance and social-emotional support coping strategies. Poor outcomes were associated with wishful thinking, denial, and avoidance coping strategies. The interventions addressed in the systematic reviews were extremely varied and encompassed Psychosocial, Psychoeducational, Technical, Therapy, Support Groups and Multicomponent interventions. Specific outcome measures used in the primary sources covered by the systematic reviews were also extremely varied but could be grouped into three dimensions, viz., a broad dimension of “Psychological Well-Being v. Psychological Morbidity” and two narrower dimensions of “Knowledge and Coping” and of “Institutionalisation Delay”.ConclusionsThis meta-review supports the conclusion that being a caregiver for people with dementia is associated with psychological stress and physical ill-health. Benefits in terms of mental health and depression were generally found for caregiver coping strategies involving problem focus, acceptance and social-emotional support. Negative outcomes for caregivers were associated with wishful thinking, denial and avoidance coping strategies. Psychosocial and Psychoeducational interventions were beneficial for caregivers and for people with dementia. Support groups, Multicomponent interventions and Joint Engagements by both caregivers and people with dementia were generally found to be beneficial. It was notable that virtually all reviews addressed very general coping strategies for stress broadly considered, rather than in terms of specific remedies for specific sources of stress. Investigation of specific stressors and remedies would seem to be a useful area for future research.

Reduced drinking with age: Is it normal?

Research suggests that alcohol consumption declines steadily with age. However, most studies are cross-sectional surveys, rather than longitudinal studies. Although it is generally assumed that the findings from cross-sectional studies indicate that the consumption of alcohol declines because of factors associated with ageing, survey results such as these could reflect a cohort or period, rather than an ageing, effect. It may be that the current cohorts of older people drank less when they were young and have merely carried this pattern of consumption into old age. Thus, it may not be the case that it is ‘normal’ to consume less alcohol as we age. The aim of this article is to examine the extent to which reductions in alcohol and drug consumption can be attributed to ageing, cohort, or period effects. Comparisons of three measures of alcohol consumption – abstinence, mean or moderate levels and heavy drinking – are made between Scotland, The Netherlands and the United States. Although the comparisons indicate that on average people drink less as they age, there is growing evidence that at least some of the apparent reduction in drinking with age can be accounted for by cohort differences, rather than the impact of ageing on drinking behaviour. This is an important issue because if some of the age differences in drinking suggested by cross-sectional studies are due to a cohort or period effect, then it is plausible to hypothesize that the ‘baby boomers’ might carry their relatively high levels of alcohol consumption into old age. This means that not only would this very large cohort drink a relatively large amount over the life span, but might drink at levels above those recommended for a healthy old age.

Real‐world problem solving and quality of life in older people

OBJECTIVES This study examined relationships between quality of life (QoL) in older people and cognitive functioning in both abstract and real-world problem solving. DESIGN Contributions of levels of mental, physical and social activities, self-rated and objective health status, self-rated cognitive functioning, socio-economic status, gender, real-world and abstract problem solving were examined in a regression study of factors related to QoL in older people. METHOD Participants (N=145) were 70-91 years of age. The current cognitive functioning was assessed by psychometric tests and real-world problem-solving tasks. Prior functioning was indexed by crystallized ability measures. QoL was assessed using the Leiden-Padua questionnaire (LEIPAD), Faces scales and Hospital and Anxiety Depression Scale. A single QoL factor was derived. RESULTS Simultaneous multiple regressions indicated that QoL was related to real-world but not to abstract problem-solving ability. Separate contributions to QoL were also found for health and self-rated cognitive functioning. CONCLUSIONS The present study replicates previous findings that abstract problem-solving ability is not related to QoL and supports the hypothesis that real-world or everyday problem-solving ability is associated with QoL in older people.