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Interest in working with the elderly: a cross-national study of graduating social work students
- Author:
- WEISS Idit
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work Education, 41(3), 2005, pp.379-391.
- Publisher:
- Council on Social Work Education
This article presents a cross-national study of social work students' interest in working with the elderly, based on a sample of 679 graduating BSW students from 7 countries: Australia, Brazil, England, Germany, Hungary, Israel, and the United States. The findings among all the national cohorts show that the motivation to work with the elderly was lower than motivation to work with any other age group, and that it was equally low in most of the countries. The findings support the growing concern that the social work profession may not be able to meet its obligations to the aging society.
Mortality from dementia in a community-dwelling Brazilian population
- Authors:
- NITRINI Ricardo, et al
- Journal article citation:
- International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 20(3), March 2005, pp.247-253.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
The influence of dementia on mortality has not yet been reported for a Latin American country. The aim was to evaluate the influence of dementia on mortality of a community-dwelling elderly population in Brazil, and to verify the extent to which the diagnosis of dementia is reported on death certificates. A cohort of 1,656 individuals, aged 65 and over, was screened for dementia at their domiciles, in 1997. The same population was re-evaluated in 2000, and information on deaths was obtained from relatives and from the municipal obituary service. Kaplan-Meier curves were used for the survival analysis, and the mortality risk ratio (MMR) was calculated using Cox proportional hazards models. We obtained data from 1,393 subjects, corresponding to 84.1% of the target population. The number of deaths was 58 (51.3%) among the patients with dementia and 163 (12.7%) among those without dementia in 1997 (p < 0.0001). Dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD) decreased survival, with hazards ratios of 5.16 [95% Confidence Interval (CI): 3.74-7.12] for dementia and 4.76 (95% CI: 3.16-7.18) for AD. The Cox proportional hazards model identified dementia (MMR = 3.92, 95% CI: 2.80-5.48) as the most significant predictor of death, followed by age, history of stroke, complaints of visual impairment and heart failure and by severe arterial hypertension in the baseline evaluation. Dementia and/or AD were mentioned in only 12.5% of the death certificates of individuals with dementia. Dementia causes a significant decrease in survival, and the diagnosis of dementia is rarely reported on death certificates in Brazil.