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Biomedical subjects

E W Markson

Publications and source records attributed to E W Markson.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Functional, social, and psychological disability as causes of loss of weight and independence in older community-living people.

This article reviews functional, social, and psychological disabilities that relate to weight loss and independence in older community residents and suggests possible ways in which these factors may be alleviated. Although these disabilities clearly interact with one another as causes of failure to thrive, this article is organized into three major sections: functional disability, psychological and social factors, and malnutrition. In-depth geriatric assessment provides directions to reverse or halt failure to thrive. Using case materials, possible interventions are presented; these include dietary changes, a carefully planned program of physical exercise, treatment for depression, and a combination of social and environmental "prescriptions" designed to reduce social and emotional isolation. Appropriate social supports are also necessary, as is careful attention to how caregiver stress may be reduced through suitable interventions.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1995

Development of health risk appraisal functions in the presence of multiple indicators: the Framingham Study nursing home institutionalization model.

A health risk appraisal function is a mathematical model designed to estimate the risk or probability of a person's mortality or morbidity for various diseases based upon risk factors such as age, medical history and smoking behaviour. The Framingham Study has contributed substantially to the development and use of these for endpoints such as mortality and incidence of coronary heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases. This paper discusses a methodology for the development of health risk appraisal functions when the number of potential risk factors is large and illustrates it with sex specific functions for nursing home institutionalization. The methodology involves grouping variables substantively into sets, applying principal component factor analysis and variable clustering to obtain substantively meaningful composite scores, ranking these in order of substantive importance, and then entering these with a hierarchical ordering into a Cox proportional hazard regression.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

Disengagement theory revisited.

Cumming and Henry erected the basic frame for a socio-cultural theory of normal aging in their 1961 book, Growing Old. The basic postulates of this theory are reviewed, and the overall structure of the theory briefly examined. Critical data necessary either to accept or reject disengagement theory are not yet available, although useful information has been gathered since the theory first appeared. Part of the difficulty in amassing "proof" or "disproof" is inherent in the intricate and complex nature of the aging process itself. This orienting paper introduced a set of contributtions by other commentators on disengagement theory.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Gender roles and memory loss in old age: an exploration of linkages.

A framework relating gender roles, role loss, and memory is presented. For the now-old woman, her identity has usually been defined by her roles within the family; other personal touchstones have been less legitimate. In old age, when key family roles dwindle, many women who have relied on their families as sources of identity are placed in an anomic situation, especially women with limited resources. When few meaningful social roles exist in the present, memory becomes increasingly important as a link to develop and maintain the self. It is proposed that, without meaningful present roles to frame one's past experience, memory is likely to be characterized by a high frequency of nonintegrated, relatively meaningless relationships, in turn leading to a narrowing of horizons and inability to take the role of the other. Episodic memories may decay since present events have no interest and generic memory becomes impaired. A case study approach is used to examine the relationship between self-preoccupation, group affiliation, object relations, and memory loss among three older working-class women. Their speech patterns, specifically pronoun use, were analyzed and support the postulate that a high frequency of self-references indicates memory loss and paucity of present experience.

Aged↗