Search results for ‘Subject term:"retirement communities"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 2 of 2
Consulting with residents: EAC's card game
- Authors:
- EASTERBROOK Lorna, BILLETER Alex
- Journal article citation:
- Housing Care and Support, 14(3), 2011, pp.83-90.
- Publisher:
- Emerald
This article outlines the development of an annual National Housing for Older People Awards scheme, to celebrate innovation in extra care housing, using a card game between residents to gather views on the services they receive. The card game approach is informal, resident-led, and allows for group discussions and group scores and scoring by individuals. It provides meaningful comparisons with other schemes regionally and nationally. In the absence of formal evaluative research, the feedback from service users is that the card game, combined with the awards nomination and ceremony, is an enjoyable and effective means to elicit their views, with minimal input from the service provider agencies. The article, based on the first-hand knowledge of the development team, relates this development to the broader UK policy context which now requires older persons' accommodation services to develop a range of consultative approaches, and highlights the importance of including informal, scheme-based and social opportunities for residents to share their views. The authors concluded that the card game offers an enjoyable and engaging, but low cost means of providing essential feedback to service providers in housing with care and support.
Can we trust depression screening instruments in healthy old-old adults?
- Authors:
- WATSON Lea C., et al
- Journal article citation:
- International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 19(3), March 2004, pp.278-285.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Despite a growing understanding of late-life depression, few studies focus on the old-old, those 75 years and over. The authors wished to characterize depressive symptoms and determine the accuracy of two common screening instruments for major and minor depression in a population of old-old retirees. Participants lived independently in one of two Continuing Care Retirement Communities and volunteered for an in-home interview about cancer screening attitudes. As part of this baseline interview, they were screened with the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale. Those agreeing to a second interview received an evaluation using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-IV), performed by a geriatric psychiatrist within two weeks of the initial interview. In an educated and cognitively intact group of retirees averaging 80 years of age, the GDS and CES-D performed poorly using standard cutpoints in detecting both major (sensitivity 60% for both) and minor (sensitivity 33% and 50%, respectively) depression. One in five participants had significant depression as confirmed by SCID-IV evaluation. Twelve percent had major depression and 7% had minor depression. Most participants had their first episode of either after age 60. Contrary to most studies evaluating the GDS and CES-D for accuracy in detecting late-life depression, these instruments at standard cutpoints performed poorly in this group of healthy older adults. The healthy old-old may require novel screening interventions to detect clinically significant depression.