SEARCH · Search PubMed
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
We investigated whether perceived quality of life is associated with preferences for life-sustaining treatment for older adults. Participants included chronically ill, elderly outpatients (N = 258) and their primary physicians (N = 105). Patients and physicians were independently administered a questionnaire regarding patient quality of life and preferences for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and mechanical ventilation for the patient. Physicians rated patients' global quality of life, physical comfort, mobility, depression, anxiety, and family relationships significantly worse than did patients. Nearly all perceptions of patients' quality of life were significantly associated with physicians' perceptions, but not patients' treatment preferences. Patient-physician agreement on patient global quality of life was not significantly associated with agreement regarding treatment preferences. We conclude that primary physicians generally consider their older outpatients' quality of life to be worse than do the patients. Furthermore, physicians' estimations of patient quality of life are significantly associated with physicians' attitudes toward life-sustaining treatment for the patients. For the patients, however, perceived quality of life does not appear to be associated with their preferences for life-sustaining treatment.
The desire for the extension of life is not one out of many desire in life, but a form of the fundamental desire for life itself. This so called 'categorical desire' is a necessary condition for the many desires in life. The question why we desire for life (and for its extension), is the question for the meaning of life. The searching for a 'natural lifespan' is meaningless when it wants to find in nature a given norm for the duration of life. It can only have meaning when it tries to formulate the conditions for the experience of life as successful and meaningful. A long tradition in philosophy and religion associates the meaning of life with the acknowledgement of its finitude and mortality and with the acceptance of death. As far as the extension of life is motivated by a fear of death and by an effort to escape from it, it is a neglect of what makes life meaningful, and of what makes it (and its extension) worthwhile to desire.
Menopause marks the beginning of a stage of life characterized by an increased susceptibility to diseases such as coronary heart disease and osteoporosis. It was therefore hypothesized that early age at natural menopause would lengthen the duration of the postmenopausal stage of life and thereby result in an earlier age at death. This study investigated the relations between age at natural menopause, duration of postmenopausal life (ie, life expectancy at menopause), and age at death (ie, age at menopause plus life expectancy at menopause). Data were derived from a study of 5,287 naturally postmenopausal Seventh-day Adventists observed during 1976-1982. Life expectancy was estimated by a mathematical model that used mortality ratios from the study and mortality rates from the US general population. For natural menopause before the age of 47 years, each one-year decrease in age at menopause was associated with a 0.53-year increase in postmenopausal life (P = .04) and a 0.47-year decrease in the age at death (P = .04). For natural menopause at the age of 47 years and older, however, each one-year decrease in age at menopause was associated with a 0.99-year increase in postmenopausal life (P = .03) and only a 0.01-year decrease in the age at death (P = .85). Overall, these findings argue against the possibility that the association between age at menopause and age at death in this study was due to the relation of age at menopause to the duration of postmenopausal life.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
This article extends the recent abridged life-table method of Hsieh. It generalizes the conventional discrete (abridged and complete) life tables into a continuous life table that can produce life-table functions at any age and develops a unified method of life-table construction that simplifies the disparate laborious procedures used in the traditional approach of constructing abridged and complete life tables. A set of precise procedures based on the complete cubic spline for the main body of the table and a mortality law for advanced ages is developed for estimating the basic and nonbasic life-table functions from a given mortality schedule. The proposed method can also produce more life-table functions than other existing methods. The method is illustrated with Canadian data.
The right to clean air in public places (RCA) could be a good indicator of health consciousness. We surveyed the consciousness of RCA among residents (20 years of age or older; n = 1500) in city D, a satellite town of Osaka, and examined the relationship between life style and the knowledge aspect of RCA, one of the three aspects of the consciousness concerning RCA. Knowledge of laws concerning the smoking regulations in public places are divided into two categories. One is knowledge of laws concerning general matters, and the other is knowledge of laws concerning concrete matters. Therefore, we get two kinds of relationships. These are the relationship between life style and knowledge of laws concerning general matters, and the relationship between life style and knowledge of laws concerning concrete matters. We examined these two relationships by using Student's t test, and tried to determine the individual life style closely related to the scores for knowledge of laws with the chi-square test. We got following results. (1) The relationship between life style and knowledge of laws concerning general matters Knowledge scores got higher as the life style scores (HPI) became higher. This trend could be detected in all four subgroups. The scores of male subgroups were generally higher than those of female subgroups. This could be construed as follows: those who take care of their physical health have a lot of knowledge of laws concerning smoking regulations. (2) The relationship between life style and knowledge of laws concerning concrete matters Knowledge scores got lower as the life style scores became higher. This trend was almost the same in all four subgroups. The scores of male groups were generally higher than those of female subgroups. This trend could be construed as follows: men and women whose HPI is lower get more opportunities to be in the public places where smoking is totally allowed (e. g., bars) irrespective of their smoking status.
The hypothesis that paramecia use fissions, not days, to measure length of cell life-span was investigated. Parallel cell lines were grown at 27 C and at 24 C. The daily fission rate of the cells at 24 C was lower than at 27 C. If the cells count fissions, not days, the life-span in fissions should remain unchanged, whereas the cell life-span in days should increase in the lines with reduced daily fission rate. The results showed a significant increase in cell life-span in days when the cells were cultivated for 70-100% of their life cycle at 24 C. The life-span as measured by fissions, however, remained unchanged regardless of the time of the life cycle when cells were shifted to 24 C. The data indicate that, as a model system for cellular aging, paramecia are comparable to cells which use cell doublings to measure life-span.
The right to clean air in public places (RCA) is a useful indicator of health consciousness. We surveyed the life style and consciousness towards RCA among employees working at the head office of a major company in Osaka, and examined the relationship between life style and knowledge aspect of RCA, one of the three aspects of consciousness towards RCA. Knowledge on laws concerning smoking regulations in public places was classified into two categories. One was knowledge on laws concerning general matters and the other was knowledge on laws concerning concrete and specific matters. Therefore, there are two kinds of relationship; the relationship between life style and knowledge on laws concerning general matters and the relationship between life style and knowledge on laws concerning concrete matters. These two relationships were examined with statistical procedures. Mean scores of knowledge on laws of subgroups divided by HPI score (POOR, MODERATE and GOOD) within groups divided by age and sex ("M. smoker," "M. nonsmoker" and "F. nonsmoker") were compared by t-test. Life style related to knowledge score was checked by correlation coefficient. The following results were obtained. (1) Relationship between life style and knowledge on laws concerning general matters Knowledge scores and their age-adjusted scores of MODERATE groups were the lowest among the 3 groups ("M. smoker," "M. nonsmoker," "F. nonsmoker"). This set of questions was designed to measure the knowledge level on laws concerning general matters. One would have abundant knowledge if one is health-conscious. In other words, those who do many things beneficial to physical health and have a high HPI have a wealth of knowledge on laws concerning smoking regulations on general matters. In the case of the employees, MODERATE groups were less health-oriented than others ("POOR," "GOOD") within the 3 groups ("M. smoker," "M. nonsmoker," "F. nonsmoker"). (2) Relationship between life style and knowledge on laws concerning concrete matters This set of questions was designed to measure the knowledge on laws concerning concrete and specific matters. To attain high scores, it is necessary to have more smoking experiences in various types of indoor places. POOR group of "M. smoker" and MODERATE groups of "M. nonsmoker" and "F. nonsmoker" had high knowledge scores. They were considered to have greater opportunities to visit public places where smoking is permitted (for example, bars) irrespective of their smoking status.
Ten domains of life satisfaction were developed for military wives based on a factor analysis of 44 items derived from various studies of quality of life. Factor scores were computed for each domain, and multiple regressions were performed with the domains of satisfaction as the independent variables. Two dependent variables were used--namely--a measure of general well-being and overall satisfaction with life. The most important component of both general well-being and life satisfaction was a factor dealing with marriage, health, and family life. Factors related to domains of satisfaction with military life also explained significant amounts of variance in both dependent variables.
The effect of various immunosuppressive treatments on mean life-span and disease incidence have been studied. Significant life shortening was seen only in mice which recieved X-irradiation early in life and can be ascribed primarily to an increased incidence of certain malignancies. Marginal life shortening was seen in cyclophosphamide-treated animals, however, survival patterns between those and control animals did not differ until 30 months of age and the magnitude of life-shortening never approached that seen in X-irradiated animals. Thymectomy, splenectomy or cortisone treatment did not alter survival. All immunosuppressive treatments enhanced mortality due to non-neoplastic diseases, however, only a small percentage of animals die with these disease entities. With the exception of cortisone all immunosuppressive treatments increased the incidence of neoplastic disease. However, their effects on various neoplastic processes were variable and unpredictable. Four primary patterns in terms of relative immune competence, disease incidence and life expectancy were seen. Thus, immunodepression may of may not correlate with increased disease incidence, which in turn may or may not have a life-shortening effect. These findings are discussed in terms of the marked reduction of both humoral and cell-mediated immunity normally seen in aged mice and the significance of postulated immune surveillance mechanisms to survival.
There is substantial evidence of individual variation in health-related quality of life measures that is not accounted for by age or disease condition. An understanding of factors that determine good health is necessary for maintained function and improved quality of life. This study examines the extent to which social support and stressful life events were more or less beneficial for the long-term physical functioning and emotional well-being of 1,402 chronically ill patients. Analyses, conducted separately in three age groups, showed that social support was beneficial for health over time regardless of age. In addition, low levels of support were particularly damaging for the physical functioning of older patients. Stressful life events impacted differentially on health-related quality of life; relationship events had an immediate effect on well-being which diminished with time; financial events had an immediate negative effect on functioning and well-being which persisted over time for middle-aged patients; bereavement had a delayed impact on quality of life, with the youngest patients especially vulnerable to its negative effects; work-related events had both negative and positive effects, depending on age group. Results reinforce the importance of identifying and dealing with psychosocial problems among patients with chronic disease.
It is demonstrated that the expression for the life expectancy of an individual in biomedical investigations can be greatly simplified if the class of life distributions possesses what has been called the "setting the clock back to zero" property, studied previously by Raja Rao and Talwalker. It is shown that the Gompertzian growth process, Krane's family of life distributions, and the linear hazard exponential distribution have this property. To illustrate the use of this property, an individual's life expectancy is tabulated for several choices of the parameter values when the individual's life distribution belongs to a Gompertzian growth process. In addition, it is shown that a new survival model considered by Chiang and Conforti for the estimation of time to tumor has the "setting the clock back to zero" property. Its life expectancy is evaluated at any given time chi 0 using this property.
The relationship between alcoholism, depression, life-stress events and purpose-in-life is a very complex one. Thirty-five first admission alcoholics and an equal number of members of Alcoholics Anonymous were assessed, using objective measures of alcoholism, depression, stress and purpose-in-life. The results indicate that there were significant differences between the two groups on drinking behaviour, depression and purpose-in-life. No differences were found between the groups on the stress questionnaire. Positive correlations were found between drinking behaviour and depression, life events and purpose-in-life.
The influence of event characteristics on recall was examined by directly comparing fall-off in reporting life events as a function of life change, desirability, and anticipation. We collected information from a sample of 1,669 blue-collar workers on stressful life events that occurred in a 1-year interval before the questionnaire was administered. The results indicated no fall-off in reporting events associated with marked life changes (ie, salient events). In contrast, significant fall-off was observed for events characterized by varying degrees of desirability and anticipation. Although ratings of desirability and saliency were not independent, saliency of life events emerged as the dimension most closely associated with accuracy of event reporting. Research on the reliability of measures of life events and the association between event characteristics and illness should consider the kinds of systematic reporting differences observed here.