<p> Society values youth; this leaves the older population vulnerable to ageism especially when they are trying to find employment. Mature workers were greatly affected during the latest recession in 2007. Although older adults&rsquo; unemployment rate has lowered, older workers are experiencing longer weeks of unemployment than any other population. This thesis is a curriculum intended is to teach older adults how to present their skills and abilities for prospective employers. The curriculum aims to empower older adults who are seeking employment through a series of workshops that will be delivered in a group setting.</p>

<p> This qualitative case study explored the ways in which older adults with developmental disabilities (DD) learn to successfully age in place. As more persons with DD reach old age and outlive their natural caretakers, such as parents, it is becoming apparent that there are a multitude of age-related challenges and educational needs that must be addressed. However, information pertaining to the unique learning needs of older adults with DD is scarce. Andragogy (the art and science of teaching adults) and geragogy (teaching the elderly) provided the theoretical frameworks for this study. The main research question in this study was: How are older adults with DD unique adult learners? To answer this question, the primary investigator (PI) conducted a qualitative study exploring the ways in which older adults enrolled in the Association on Aging with Developmental Disabilities (AADD) programs and services for seniors learned to successfully age in place. The PI conducted observations, focus groups, in-depth interviews, and an email questionnaire with a sample of AADD program participants, staff, and board members. Verbatim transcriptions of the interviews and focus group sessions were analyzed using open and axial coding methods. </p><p> The following 11 themes emerged from the data: respect and equality, individualization, humor and fun, age-related learning challenges, social support, accumulation of loss, active aging and health maintenance, independence and autonomy, identity, attitudes towards those aging with DD, and learning strategies. The results provided evidence of the application of andragogy in meeting the unique learning needs of older adults with DD, as well as the premise that independent learning leads to independent living. Participants stressed the need for learning to be highly individualized and fun. The importance of strong social support systems to help offset myriad age-related challenges faced by older adults with DD were also evidenced. Further exploration of educational programs designed to address emerging learning needs of those aging with DD, such as reverse caregiving roles (e.g., assuming the responsibility of primary caregiver for an elderly parent), as well as the application of andragogy to other aging with DD programs and services is warranted.</p>

Stress tolerance and lifespan are intimately associated. Extension of lifespan is accompanied by increased tolerance of heat, oxidative stress, radiation and other stressors, while genetic perturbations that abrogate lifespan extension compromise stress tolerance. The consistency of this correlation suggests that the mechanisms of longevity extension and stress tolerance are intertwined. However, the contributions of individual cytoprotective mechanisms to lifespan extension under each of these conditions, and the cascades by which they are regulated, are largely unknown. Treatments that confer lifespan extension include the inhibition of feeding, insulin/IGF-1 signaling, metabolism and translation. We have examined diverse stress-responsive pathways to isolate those that contribute to one or more modes of longevity extension in C. elegans. Initial results revealed an association of longevity with mitochondrial and endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein responses, oxidative stress response, xenobiotic detoxification and developmental arrest. To gain insight into the regulation of these responses in lifespan extension, we employed gene inactivation and mutagenic screens to identify the genetic pathways that couple the induction of cytoprotective pathways to longevity-regulatory programs. We have identified a set of 25 genes required for both cytoprotective response and lifespan extension. These genes elaborate the regulatory cascades that mediate longevity and provide insight into the complexity of cytoprotective networks.

<p> The world is undergoing a key demographic shift and a restructuring of its population due to the increase in the relative size of the aging population. Based on the latest world census data, the number of people aged 65 or older is expected to increase from an estimated 416 million in the year 2000 to 853 million in the year 2025. The US Census Bureau estimated that in 2050 the number of Americans aged 65 and older would reach 88.5 million, more than double the projected population of 40.2 million in 2010. The state of California has 3.5 million people over the age of 65, the largest older adult population in the United States. This research assessed the functions and effects of the organizational culture of the Area Agencies on Aging in California as the lead agencies mandated to deliver services to older adults. The study presented measurements and comparisons of the cultural traits of each agency and the impact of these traits on performance across the state of California. The organizational culture traits that were scrutinized included involvement, consistency, adaptability, and mission. The outcomes revealed that Area Agencies on Aging in California were high-performance organizations. The data showed that the strongest trait was involvement, which was manifested a high level of employee investment in their work. The weakest trait was adaptability, which was manifested by inflexible or not easily changed behavior.</p>

The knowledge we have about older women-the images we have of them, the things we say about them-serves to render them socially invisible and to produce the discursive 'little old lady'. However, it can be shown that the notions we have about older women are produced by the relations that obtain between ideology, discourse and are reproduced, resisted, and contradicted by older women themselves at the level of everyday talk. This thesis is concerned with exposing these relations and re-thinking older women in their complexity. An examination is carried out of the discourses within which the subject positions of older women are generated. In particular the western epistemological discourses concerning body, self, women and ageing are examined. Interviews with 20 women between the ages of 61-104 were carried out in order to explore the differences in the strategies used by older women in negotiating identity within the context of a sexist and ageist society. In particular the differences among and between ages, class, marital status, colour, and sexual orientation was of interest. The transcripts resulting from the interviews were analyzed for the range of positions the women took up or resisted within dominant discourses (ageist, femininity) and peripheral discourses (feminism and postmodemist discourses of the body, leisure and difference). Notions of older women as socially dependent, inactive, unhealthy and asexual were not supported. Further the method deployed enabled a view of the movement in speech where there was a dilemma between ideological positions (what is supposed to be) and everyday practices (what is). The conclusion is that the words and lives of older women disrupt the simple categorization of the 'discursive' little old lady. Rather older women were shown to be more diverse and complex than our current knowledge about them implies.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The normal aging process is accompanied by changes in cognitive function. One of the brain regions known to be an early target of the aging process is the hippocampus, a medial temporal lobe structure that is critically involved in spatial learning and memory function. The formation and maintenance of memory relies on rapid and sustainable synaptic modification, which requires new gene expression. Immediate-early genes are the first genes to be induced following relevant stimuli, and include genes that encode transcription factors, such as c-fos and zif268, and effector proteins that directly influence cellular function, such as Arc (activity-regulated cytoskeletal gene) and Homer1A. Blocking the expression of any one of these genes interferes with memory function, and thus, each of these genes is thought to have a memory enhancing effect. The hypothesis tested here was that aged animals would show a reduction in the expression of memory-promoting immediate-early genes within the hippocampus, and moreover, that these changes in expression would be subregion specific, based on the finding that the dentate gyrus is most vulnerable to the aging process.Potential age-related changes in immediate-early gene expression within the hippocampus was determined under basal conditions and after induction by a simple behavioral task. Of the genes under investigation, only c-fos did not show age-related changes under basal conditions, or following behavioral induction. The remaining genes, Arc, zif268 and Homer1A, each showed subregion specific patterns of change within the hippocampus under basal conditions or following induction (or both). The coordinate expression of immediate-early genes within the hippocampus was also investigated by assessing the extent to which Arc was expressed within the same neurons as c-fos, zif268 or H1a. The coordinate transcription of these genes was not significantly altered in the aged hippocampus, even though changes in the size of Arc and zif268 neural ensembles occurs within the aged denate gyrus.Taken together, these data indicate that age-related reductions in the basal and induced levels of immediate-early genes occur within the hippocampus, and that these changes are subregion specific.

Recent research has demonstrated that priming and recognition memory performance are not independent as traditionally thought. Evidence is accumulating suggesting that information recognized in great detail (recollected) also has higher levels of priming (Sheldon &amp; Moscovitch, 2010; Turk-Browne, Yi, &amp; Chun, 2006). The purpose of this dissertation was to delineate the conditions under which recognition processes (estimates of recollection and familiarity) are associated with priming, and how this changes with age. Results from a systematic crossing of level of encoding (deep versus shallow) with type of priming task (conceptual versus perceptual) suggests that the relation between priming and recognition is determined by the nature of the encoding task. Under deep encoding conditions, a greater magnitude of priming&mdash;both perceptual and conceptual&mdash;was related to subsequent recollection but only amongst younger adults. Under shallow encoding conditions, perceptual priming performance was related to subsequent familiarity in both younger and older adults. Taken together, this series of experiments suggests that the processing mode engaged during encoding dictates which processes will be engaged at retrieval (a recollection-based process, or a familiarity-based process; Henke, 2010). These findings also suggest that both recollection and familiarity have rapid and unconscious aspects that are measurable through behavioural priming tasks, aligning with a recently proposed model suggesting recollection is characterized by a two-stage process, an early, relatively automatic and unconscious stage and a later, controlled and conscious stage (Moscovitch, 2008). It is suggested that the rapid, unconscious aspects of recollection may decline across the lifespan, while the rapid, unconscious aspects of familiarity stay intact with age.