later life

People aged 55 and over. The elderly men and women in the population. Old people who may be retired and suffering from chronic disease

Our later life Blogs

Trajectory of dementia: is it different for people with Down syndrome?

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Down syndrome is the most common cause of learning disability in the UK and increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s dementia is well documented.

In her debut blog, Silvana Mengoni looks at a paper which uses three case studies to consider some interesting trajectories of dementia which raise some interesting questions.

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Do we stigmatise mental illness more as we age?

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Raluca Lucacel writes her debut blog about an age-period-cohort analysis, which investigates how attitudes towards people with mental illness worsen during the course of life.

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Pointing the FINGER at a multi-component intervention to prevent cognitive decline and dementia

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Caroline Struthers critically appraises a recent RCT of diet, exercise, cognitive training and vascular risk monitoring to prevent cognitive decline and dementia in at-risk Finnish women.

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What makes dementia care home staff happy at work?

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Clarissa Giebel looks at a paper by fellow blogger, Jill Manthorpe, and explores findings on what makes dementia care home staff happy in their jobs.

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What factors determine the need for social care in older age?

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Martin Stevens interrogates an analysis of a longitudinal study dataset to discover what it says about determinants of social care and support use in older age.

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Case management for dementia: The jury’s (still) out.

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Caroline Struthers comes to grips with a Cochrane Review on case management for people with dementia and finds relevant messages for both practitioners and researchers.

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How do older people experience social care support?

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Jill Manthorpe gets to grips with a systematic review of qualitative research to find out how older people experience social care support and calls on a surprising literary character for help.

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Is moderate alcohol consumption good for you?

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Beware underpowered observational studies! Marcus Munafò helps us understand why a recent BMJ study on all cause mortality and age specific alcohol consumption is not as simple as the newspapers would have us believe.

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ECT for depression in the elderly

Depression and anxiety are quite common in people with dementia and mild cognitive impairment.

Andrew Shepherd reports on a post-hoc analysis of pre-existing trial data, which does little to convince him that ECT is a safe and effective treatment option for older people with severe depression.

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Extra care housing vs nursing homes for disabled older people

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In her exploration of a Canadian study into extra care housing for older disabled people, Jo Moriatry gives a critical view of the research and offers some insights into what it means for the UK policy and practice context.

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