Background: Clinical outcome is one of the indicators for treatment effect in specific populations such as the elderly. Depression is manifested as the result of biological, psychological, and social factors which are interrelated in the symptoms of low mood, energy, and motivation. In specific population of elderly, depression is related to the issue of loneliness and may impact the quality of life, as well as the progression of other medical comorbidities. Therefore, it is important to monitor the progress of treatment among theelderly.

Objectives: The Objectives of this study is to observe clinical improvement of depressive symptoms through the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS).

Methods: This is an observational cohort study conducted in the outpatient clinic setting. The data was collected after one month of follow-up. Each patient was assessed using the MADRS questionnaire in every clinical encounter. The MADRS scores were analysed statistically using descriptive and dependent variableanalysis.

Results: We collected 304 data of patients using MADRS as part of the clinical measurement. The average age is 69.98±6.6 years old. From gender distribution, 57.6% are female and 42.4% are male. From one-month follow-up, 37.8% of patients showed improvement of MADRS score and 39.1% remains the same from the previous visit.

Statistical analysis showed significant change of MADRS score after follow-up, indicating the importance of routine visit and monitoring for elderly showing symptoms of depression.

Conclusions: Psychometric evaluation is an essential component for observing the clinical improvement for elderly with symptoms of depression.

The World Health Organization (WHO) proclaimed September 21 as World Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Day and extended the observance to the entire month. Various awareness campaigns are being conducted around the world, with special emphasis on the importance of education to improve the quality of life for patients, families, and the community at large, and to eliminate stigma and ageism.

It is estimated that there are approximately 44 million people worldwide with some form of dementia, while in the United States it reaches 5.4 million. In Puerto Rico, it is estimated that there are approximately 60,000 people with Alzheimer’s disease. An AARP study (2021) showed that there are over 500,000 caregivers of older adults, making Puerto Rico one of the top three countries with the largest aging population and the 6th country in the world. While in Latin America and the Caribbean there is a prevalence between 6.2 and 6.5 per 100 adults aged 60 years or older (WHO).

This health and social situation require an educated and empowered society to meet the challenges. Muñoz et. al (2023) conducted a qualitative study with caregivers and found that 91% of the participants stated that training would help them provide better care to the elderly. Social work is one of the main disciplines dealing with this social phenomenon and should therefore play a leading role in education and therapeutic intervention.

For the past five years, the Department of Social Work at Inter-American University, Metro Campus, has joined and supported the cause through the celebration of the Alzheimer’s Symposium: A Perspective from the Academy. This event involves the entire university community, as well as the community at large, which includes caregivers, government and non- profit agencies, and professionals from various disciplines. There will be concurrent lectures, Discussions among local and international professionals, a film forum, poster presentations, artistic expressions, and educational tables. The 6th Symposium will be held on September 20, 2024. The Symposium is promoted through various media. This activity has generated alliances, recommendations and new educational projects that contribute to the well-being of older adults.

Introduction: The elderly population presents aggravating factors for the risk of suicide that must be considered. In this sense, it is known that there is a tendency for elderly people not to reveal suicidal ideation and to make highly self-destructive attempts. Furthermore, poorly planned retirement, social isolation, death of a spouse, family and friends can make this situation worse. However, few studies address this topic and public policies regarding suicide among the elderly are still scarce.

Objectives: To analyze the prevalence of suicide among elderly people in different regions of Brazil between 2019 and 2021.

Methods: Quantitative, descriptive and exploratory, cross-sectional study. For collection, the DATASUS database was used, based on information regarding the cause of intentional self- harm codes X60 to X84, based on the 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related HealthProblems.

Results: It was observed that in Brazil, among elderly people of both sexes, the highest suicide rates are found in the age group of 60 to 69 years, with the general proportion of suicides being higher in the male population. Furthermore, the Southeast Region had the highest number of notifications, while the North Region of the country had the lowest. The age group equal to or greater than 80 years, presented the highest number of cases in the South Region.

Conclusions: Suicide notifications are an alarm for understanding the risk factors that must be carefully identified through a broader look at issues of mental health in the elderly. This information makes it possible to understand the current scenario of deaths by region to detect populations with a higher incidence and understand the binomial of mental health and aging.

The considerable literature on the value of a statistical life (VSL) documents the wage-mortality risk trade-offs for the working population. Regulatory analyses often must monetize risks to populations at the tails of the age distribution. Because of the longer life expectancy for children, there have been proposals to add a premium to their VSL, which would generate an inconsistency with revealed preference estimates of the VSL trajectory over the life cycle. The shorter life expectancy among older people has led to various arbitrary senior discounts for seniors’ life expectancy. Application of the value of a statistical life year (VSLY) can address valuation of small changes in life expectancy. Examples of inappropriate age adjustments that we discuss include practices by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The exclusion of the elderly and people with disabilities from cancer clinical research without appropriate justification is discriminatory and is at odds with the ethos of EU principles, laws and research regulations. It further limits study generalizability. Several primary EU laws fronted by the European Charter prohibit engaging in disparate impact discrimination on the grounds of age and disability in all of EU tasks.

Promoting healthy snacking is important in addressing malnutrition, overweight and obesity among an ageing population. However, little is known about the factors underlying snacking behaviour in older adults. The present study aimed to explore within- and between-person associations between determinants (i.e. intention, visibility of snacks, social modelling and emotions) and snacking behaviours (i.e. decision to snack, health factor of the snack and portion size) in older adults (60+). Conducting a two-part intensive longitudinal design, data were analysed from forty-eight healthy older adults consisting of (1) an event-based self-report ecological momentary assessment (EMA) diary every time they had a snack and (2) a time-based EMA questionnaire on their phone five times per day. Analysis through generalised linear mixed models indicated that higher intention to snack healthily leads to healthier snacking while higher levels of social modelling and cheerfulness promote unhealthier choices within individuals. At the between-person level, similar results were found for intention and social modelling. Visibility of a snack increased portion size at both a within- and between-person level, while the intention to eat a healthy snack only increased portion size at the between-person level. No associations were found between the decision to snack and all determinants. This is the first study to investigate both within- and between-person associations between time-varying determinants and snacking in older adults. Such information holds the potential for incorporation into just-in-time adaptive interventions, allowing for personalised tailoring, more effective promotion of healthier snacking behaviours and thus pursuing the challenge of healthy ageing.

Drug-related illness (DRI) is a common problem in the elderly. Misuse of medications and inappropriate prescribing account for over half of all hospital admissions for DRI and both are potentially preventable. Physicians are the gatekeepers to prescription medication access and, in this role, they have the opportunity to prevent exposure to unnecessary and inappropriate medication and influence the use of medications by their elderly patients. Effective interventions to improve physician prescribing have been identified but they are costly to introduce, they require ongoing maintenance to maintain their effectiveness, they do not address the problems created by multiple prescribers or the challenges of keeping up-to-date on the growing number of new drugs that enter the market each year. Computer-based drug information networks and expert decision-making support systems are proposed as one means of providing (1) an accurate record for the prescribing physicians of drugs currently dispensed to their elderly patients, (2) a review of problems in existing and new prescriptions, and (3) an expert resource to select drug treatment. Canada is in an ideal situation to pioneer the development of these systems, but to do so, policies need to be put in place to address three problems. First, there is inadequate information available about the risks and benefits of drugs in the elderly because older sicker adults are often excluded in clinical trials of drug-effectiveness. Requirements for drug approval need to be amended so that sufficient evaluation of the risks and benefits of new drugs are carried out in the elderly. Second, computerization in the health care sector is central to the development of electronic decision-support systems in health care delivery. Future policy needs to be directed to the development of an effective infrastructure to facilitate the transition to an integrated computerized health sector. Third, the ethical and legal issues related to the access of prescription data through electronic networks need to be identified and clear guidelines for use of this new technology need to be developed.

Culinary medicine (CM) represents a novel strategy to promote healthy ageing, as it improves adherence to healthy dietary patterns by providing nutritional education and training in cooking skills. We conducted a comprehensive review of the current scientific literature (2011–2022) concerning CM programmes implemented among participants over the age of 40. This review includes fourteen culinary-nutritional interventions. Each CM programme was analysed according to seven variables: health goal, study design, theoretical basis of the intervention, intervention duration, main outcomes, culinary intervention and the effectiveness of intervention. Although CM programmes showed low effectiveness in achieving positive results on psychosocial outcomes, they were successful in improving dietary intake and health-related outcomes. The interventions lasting for at least 5 months and employing study designs with two or more groups seemed to be important factors associated with achieving significant results. Significant results were observed regardless of the prevention phase defined as the health objective of the CM programme. The use of theoretical frameworks as an educational resource did not influence the effectiveness of the interventions. Other variables such as the inclusion of culinary outcomes, the optimisation of the culinary curriculum taught to the participants and the participation of a chef in the intervention are factors that should be taken into account. In addition, several educational components (cooking classes, hands-on cooking, free food delivery, individualized counselling) were promising for achieving health outcomes in ageing people. Our review has shown that CM programmes can be a powerful tool to improve the health status of ageing people.

Reduction in dietary vitamin B6 intake is associated with an increased relative risk of diseases such as cancer, atherosclerosis and cognitive dysfunction. The current research has assessed vitamin B6 intakes and PLP concentrations as a marker of vitamin B6 status among the UK adult (≥ 19 years) population. This study was carried out using a cross-sectional analysis of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Programme (NDNS) (2008–2017). The impacts of lifestyle factors, including type of diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, and commonly used medications grouped by therapeutic usage, were determined, and data were analysed using IBM SPSS®. Results are expressed as medians (25th–75th percentiles), with P values ≤ 0·05 considered statistically significant. Among UK adults, the median intakes of total population of dietary vitamin B6 met the reference nutrient intake and median plasma PLP concentrations were above the cut-off of vitamin B6 deficiency; however, we found an association between reduction in vitamin B6 intake and plasma PLP concentration and age group (P < 0·001). Smokers had significantly lower plasma PLP concentrations than non-smokers (P < 0·001). Moreover, regression analysis showed some commonly used medications were associated with plasma PLP levels reduction (P < 0·05). Taken together, we report on a tendency for dietary vitamin B6 intake and plasma PLP concentrations to decrease with age and lifestyle factors such as smoking and medication usage. This information could have important implications for smokers and in the elderly population using multiple medications (polypharmacy).

Behavioral symptoms associated with dementia, such as agitation, are frequent and associated with well-known negative consequences for patients, their carers, and their environment. Pharmacological treatments for agitation using sedatives and antipsychotics are known to have several undesirable side effects and modest efficacy. Non-pharmacological alternatives are recommended as first-line options for agitation in persons with dementia with few side effects, but there is limited evidence of efficacy. We developed a novel and simple non-pharmacological alternative for agitation in dementia residents based on a Brazilian intervention using warm water surgical gloves used in patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units during the pandemic. We coined it “Mãos de Conforto” – Hands of Comfort. We report a series of 7 cases in 3 residents with dementia who whore Hands of Comfort.