Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1975. / Bibliography: leaves [225]-235. / xvii, 235 leaves ill

This minithesis provides an ethnographic account of the life world of older people in the community of Belhar in the Cape Peninsula, which was historically categorised as a &lsquo / coloured&rsquo / community during the implementation of the Group Areas Act. By content analysing newspaper articles published in the early 1980s and specifically during the implementation of the Group Areas Act I found that many of the residents reported that they lived in fear of their lives, in what was once known as a &lsquo / prestige suburb&rsquo / . At the present time the community of Belhar is an intensely gang-infested area. From preliminary research done by myself at a senior citizen centre in Belhar, the high incidence of violence was a recurring theme throughout discussions with older people. In fact when I posed the question Why do you come to the centre five days a week? to a group of older people they answered without hesitation It is unsafe for an older person to be alone during the day. Answers like these to many of the questions that I posed would almost always be followed with Things were better then. It also was apparent that the older people in this community remember (or perhaps reconstruct) the past in the context of their present living situation. This became the leading theme in my study and is also the background against which I had formulated my research questions. However this study not only focused on the impact of the high incidence of violence on the community of older people but also essentially looked at elderly residents&rsquo / everyday lived experiences in Belhar. The research sample consisted of twenty elderly residents and four key informants. The latter provided mainly infrastructural data on the community. Primary data was collected by using ethnographic techniques of inquiry which included participant observation and unstructured interviews. Results revealed that older people occupy a liminal space both in the community and in their households. I also found that the elderly stroke victim is twice silenced and marginalized due to the constraints brought on by their chronic illness and their status as an older person in the community.

Thesis (MPsy(Specialisation))--University of South Australia, 2003.

Although footwear has been recognised as a risk factor for falls in older people, it remains unclear as to which features of shoes are beneficial or detrimental to balance. This project aimed to systematically investigate the effects of common shoe features, namely: an elevated heel, a soft sole, a hard sole, a flared sole, a bevelled heel, a high-collar and a tread sole, on balance and gait in older community-dwelling people. The experimental shoes were compared to standard shoes in three studies examining: (i) standing balance, leaning balance and stepping in 29 older people, (ii) centre of mass (COM)-base of support (BOS) margins, vertical and braking loading rates, and perceived shoe comfort and stability in 11 young and 15 older people walking on even and uneven surfaces, and (iii) temporal-spatial gait variables, pelvis acceleration, and gait termination in 10 young and 26 older people, on level, irregular and wet surfaces. Elevated heel shoes impaired overall performance in functional tests of balance and stepping. They were also perceived as lacking comfort and stability and led to a conservative walking pattern characterised by increased step width and double-support time, reduced braking and vertical loading rates and medio-lateral (ML) pelvis accelerations on various surfaces. Soft sole shoes increased lateral COM-BOS margin and step width, indicating reduced ML walking stability. When wearing these shoes, subjects had longer total stopping times and on the wet surface, smaller step lengths and shoe/floor angles at heel strike, suggesting a potential risk of slipping. When wearing high-collar shoes, subjects had better balance as demonstrated by small but significant increases in lateral COM-BOS margin, double-support time and step width, and decreases in ML pelvis accelerations on varying surfaces and in total stopping time on the wet surface. Shoes with hard, flared or tread soles or a bevelled heel did not affect balance. In conclusion, providing that they are fitted, have adequate fastening and perhaps a slip-resistant sole, shoes with a low square heel, a sole of medium hardness (shore A-40) and a high-collar provide the greatest stability for older people when walking on dry, wet and irregular surfaces.

Inspection Time (IT) is a speed measure that has been primarily investigated in the field of individual differences. However, Nettelbeck and Wilson (2004) proposed that IT could have promise as a biomarker for functional outcomes, particularly cognitive aging. The premise behind biomarker research is that chronological age is simply a proxy for the physiological and cognitive changes that occur in the body with advancing age. Biomarkers are measures that 'mark' the aging process and represent the biological age of an individual rather than the years since his/her birth. Speed of processing tasks offer promise as biomarkers because decline in speed of processing is one of the most robust findings in cognitive aging research. However, traditionally used tasks are problematic because they confound speed and accuracy and some are sensitive to cohort effects. Inspection time is a speed of processing measure that is free from these problems and is therefore a promising candidate for a biomarker. This dissertation presents the first empirical investigation of this proposition. One hundred and fifty elderly participants were assessed on IT, traditionally used biomarkers (e.g. grip strength, visual acuity), a battery of cognitive tasks (e.g. fluid ability and crystallised ability) and measures of everyday functioning (e.g. activities of daily living). These individuals were assessed on three separate occasions over a period of 18-months. For the biomarkers, initial scores, 6-month change scores and 18-month change scores were generated and used to predict final scores and 18-month change scores on the functional outcomes (cognition and everyday functioning). Results revealed that slow IT at the start of the study was associated with dependence in activities of daily living and poorer fluid ability at the end of the study. There was also evidence that slow IT at the start was associated with decline in fluid reasoning over the subsequent 18-months. Moreover, consistent with the major aims of this study, decline in IT over time was associated with more cognitive problems in daily life and poor fluid ability at the end of the study. Given that initial and change scores for IT were independent, due to the methodology used to estimate them, the two measures explained unique variance in the functional outcome measures.These findings are extremely encouraging, particularly given the relatively short time frame for this study. IT has predictive validity for everyday functioning and cognitive aging over an 18-month period, and therefore, it is concluded that IT has promise as a valid biomarker for functional age. Recommendations for further research include investigating the link between IT and mortality, examining the association between IT and a broader range of functional age measures, the replication of these findings in a different sample, and means for improving the sensitivity and specificity of the current IT estimation procedure. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, 2006.

Balance dysfunction and the resultant falls and injuries, loss of confidence, alternations lifestyle and the overall costs are a major problem to older people in Australia. The studies in this thesis investigate discrete but inter-linked aspects of the problems of falls among community dwelling older people, including measurement issues, prediction of fallers, types of dysfunction related to clinical diagnoses, and the effect of multidisciplinary intervention. Preliminary studies of older people from both healthy and clinical samples identified high retest reliability for the dynamic balance tests on the Chattecx Balance System, high retest reliability and concurrent validity for a new clinical test of dynamic standing balance, and high retest reliability and predictive validity for an expanded scale to measure fear of falling. (For complete abstract open document)

Thesis (M. P. H.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 135 p. : ill. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-130).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1989. / Bibliography: leaves 55-59.

Thesis (M. P. H.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Also available in print.