Objectives: Socioeconomic status impacts emotional health outcomes, but a lifecourse approach is necessary to understand the timing of these effects. The current analyses examined the impact of financial strain in childhood and adulthood on longitudinal changes in three measures of emotional health: depressive symptoms, loneliness, and anxiety.

Method: Data were from 1596 adults from the Swedish Twin Registry, aged 45 to 98 at intake (mean = 72.6) who participated in up to 9 waves over 25 years. Measures of financial strain (FS) included questions about how well finances met family needs. Latent growth curve models (LGCM) were used to estimate the impact of childhood and adult FS on changes in emotional health.

Results: Results indicated that both childhood and adult FS independently influenced trajectories of emotional health in mid to late adulthood. For all 3 emotional health variables, both childhood and adult FS were associated with the LGCM intercept and childhood FS was associated with linear change with age. Interaction effects of childhood and adult FS were found for the LGCM intercept for loneliness, only.

Conclusion: Results corroborate the accumulation of risk models, with effects of both childhood and adult FS on emotional health, and possible social mobility effects for loneliness.

Purpose of the research

Stress has a clear impact on health and function. Yet, little is known about how different stressors (factors that cause stress) in various contexts throughout the life course impact cognitive and physical aging. The study aimed to investigate if different types of stressors predicted cognitive and physical impairment in late life. The role of social support and internal locus of control was also investigated.

Material and methods

Two individually linked studies of Swedish nationally representative samples provided longitudinal data over 21 years, including retrospective childhood data (n = 1086). Indicators of work and financial stressors were assessed at late midlife (M=62 years) and financial stressors at early late life (M=70). Social support and internal locus of control were assessed at the mean ages of 62 and 70 years. Physical and cognitive impairment were assessed at late life (M=83). Path analyses were conducted with maximum likelihood estimation and adjusted for smoking, age, sex, educational attainment, and follow-up period.

Results

Work stressors were associated with physical and cognitive impairment directly. Work stressors were also associated with financial stressors, which, in turn, were associated with physical impairment. Childhood conflicts were associated with less social support, and less social support was associated with worse cognitive aging. Internal locus of control was not associated with cognitive and physical impairment.

Conclusions

This study confirms that stressors earlier in life predict cognitive and physical aging, but that different types of stressors have different paths to impact impairment in late life.

Objectives: This scoping review presents an overview of the available research on symptoms, comorbidities, and associated challenges among older adults with ADHD.

Method: The literature study followed Arksey and O’Malley’s five-stage framework. The search was conducted in ProQuest Central, Scopus, PsycInfo, CINAHL, and PubMed. Articles were included if they were peer-reviewed, ethically approved primary studies, written in the English language, concerning ADHD, and including people 60 years of age and older.

Results: The review included 17 articles. Symptoms of ADHD persist throughout life. Older adults with ADHD experience similar core symptoms as younger individuals, but their manifestation and intensity may differ. The most common comorbidity found was mental illness, for example depression and anxiety. ADHD in older adults is linked to several challenges, such as difficulty with relationships and social isolation.

Conclusion: Older adults with ADHD face various symptoms, comorbidities, and challenges that affect their quality of life. Age-related changes can amplify ADHD symptoms and increase the perceived burden of illness. More research is needed to understand the complex relationship between these factors and enable tailored interventions to improve their quality of life and well-being.

Aims: There is substantial evidence that previous working conditions influence post-retirement health, yet little is known about previous working conditions' association with old-age dependency. We examined job strain, hazardous and physical demands across working life, in relation to the risk of entering old-age dependency of care. Methods: Individually linked nationwide Swedish registers were used to identify people aged 70+ who were not receiving long-term care (residential care or homecare) at baseline (January 2014). Register information on job titles between the years 1970 and 2010 was linked with a job exposure matrix of working conditions. Random effects growth curve models were used to calculate intra-individual trajectories of working conditions. Cox regression models with age as the timescale (adjusted for living situation, educational attainment, country of birth, and sex) were conducted to estimate hazard ratios for entering old-age dependency during the 24 months of follow-up (n = 931,819). Results: Having initial adverse working conditions followed by an accumulation throughout working life encompassed the highest risk of entering old-age dependency across the categories (job strain: HR 1.23, 95% CI 1.19-1.27; physical demands: HR 1.36, 95% CI 1.31-1.40, and hazardous work: HR 1.35, 95% CI 1.30-1.40). Initially high physical demands or hazardous work followed by a stable trajectory, or initially low-level physical demand or hazardous work followed by an accumulation throughout working life also encompassed a higher risk of dependency. Conclusions: A history of adverse working conditions increased the risk of old-age dependency. Reducing the accumulation of adverse working conditions across the working life may contribute to postponing old-age dependency.

Objectives: To examine life-course models by investigating the roles of childhood and adult socioeconomic position (SEP) in longitudinal changes in a functional aging index. Method: Up to eight waves of testing, covering 25 years, were available from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging: N = 654, intake age = 50-82. A two-slope latent growth curve model was applied to the data, and the impact of including childhood and adult SEP as covariates of the intercept (at age 70) and slopes (before and after age 70) was tested. Results: Both childhood and adult SEP contributed to the best-fitting model. Childhood SEP was significantly associated with intercept and Slope 1 (before age 70) of the latent growth curve model (p < .05). Association of adult SEP with Slope 2 (after age 70) trended toward significance (p < .10). There was a significant interaction effect of childhood and adult SEP on the intercept (p < .05). As a result, intercept at age 70 was highest and change after age 70 was fastest for those whose SEP decreased from childhood to adulthood. Conclusions: Both childhood and adult SEP impact change in functional abilities with age, supporting both critical period and social mobility models. The social environment is modifiable by policies at local, national, and international levels, and these policies need to recognize that early social disadvantage can have long-lasting health impacts.

Background: Psychosocial working conditions are associated with cognitive and physical impairments. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between mid-late life psychosocial working conditions and the combination of physical and cognitive impairment among older adults, and the potential sex differences in these associations.

Methods: Data were derived from two Swedish nationally representative surveys (n = 839; follow-up: 20–24 years). Multinomial and binary logistic regressions assessed the associations between work stressors (job demand-control model), and a combination of cognitive and physical impairment.

Results: Low control jobs were significantly associated with higher odds of cognitive (OR: 1.41, CI: 1.15–1.72) and physical impairment (OR: 1.23, CI: 1.02–1.47), and cognitive and physical impairment combined (OR: 1.50, CI: 1.19–1.89). Passive jobs (low control, low demand) were associated with higher odds of cognitive impairment (OR: 1.57, CI: 1.12–2.20), and combined cognitive and physical impairment (OR: 1.59, CI: 1.07–2.36). Active jobs (high control, high demand) were associated with lower odds of cognitive impairment (OR: 0.48, CI: 0.29–0.80). Sex-stratified analyses showed stronger associations among men; passive jobs were associated with both cognitive (OR: 2.18, CI: 1.31–3.63) and physical impairment (OR: 1.78, CI: 1.13–2.81), while low strain jobs were associated with less physical impairment (OR: 0.55, CI: 0.33-0.89). No significant associations between work stressors and impairment were found for women.

Conclusions: These results highlight the importance of psychosocial working conditions for late-life physical and cognitive impairment, especially among men. Jobs characterised by low control and low demands are associated with higher risk for impairments.

Objectives: Mental health problems are a major concern in the older population in Sweden, as is the growing number of older adults aging alone in their homes and in need of informal care. Using a linked lives perspective, this study explored if older parents' mental health is related to their children's dual burden of informal caregiving and job strain.

Methods: Data from a nationally representative Swedish survey, SWEOLD, were used. Mental health problems in older age (mean age 88) were measured with self-reported 'mild' or 'severe' anxiety and depressive symptoms. A primary caregiving adult child was linked to each older parent, and this child's occupation was matched with a job exposure matrix to assess job strain. Logistic regression analyses were conducted with an analytic sample of 334.

Results: After adjusting for covariates, caregiving children's lower job control and greater job strain were each associated with mental health problems in their older parents (OR 2.52, p = 0.008 and OR 2.56, p = 0.044, respectively). No association was found between caregiving children's job demands and their older parents' mental health (OR 1.08, p = 0.799).

Conclusion: In line with the linked lives perspective, results highlight that the work-life balance of informal caregiving adult children may play a role in their older parent's mental health.

Aims: As populations are ageing worldwide, it is important to identify strategies to promote successful ageing. We investigate how working conditions throughout working life are associated with successful ageing in later life. Methods: Data from two nationally representative longitudinal Swedish surveys were linked (n=674). In 1991, respondents were asked about their first occupation, occupations at ages 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50 years and their last recorded occupation. Occupations were matched with job exposure matrices to measure working conditions at each of these time points. Random effects growth curve models were used to calculate intra-individual trajectories of working conditions. Successful ageing, operationalised using an index including social and leisure activity, cognitive and physical function and the absence of diseases, was measured at follow-up in 2014 (age 70 years and older). Multivariable ordered logistic regressions were used to assess the association between trajectories of working conditions and successful ageing. Results: Intellectually stimulating work; that is, substantive complexity, in the beginning of one's career followed by an accumulation of more intellectually stimulating work throughout working life was associated with higher levels of successful ageing. In contrast, a history of stressful, hazardous or physically demanding work was associated with lower levels of successful ageing. Conclusions: Promoting a healthy workplace, by supporting intellectually stimulating work and reducing physically demanding and stressful jobs, may contribute to successful ageing after retirement. In particular, it appears that interventions early in one's employment career could have positive, long-term effects.

Sense of coherence (SOC) scale measures one’s orientation to life. SOC is the core construct in Antonovsky's salutogenic model of health. It has been shown that weak SOC correlates with poor perceived health, low quality of life, and increased mortality. Some studies have indicated that SOC is not stable across life, but there are no previous studies on how a change of SOC is reflected in mortality. However, there is some evidence that a change in perceived quality of life is associated with mortality. The study explores the association between the change in SOC and mortality using longitudinal data from a cohort of middle-aged Finnish men recruited between 1986 and 1989. Approximately 11 years after the baseline examinations, between 1998 and 2001, 854 men returned the SOC questionnaire a second time. The baseline SOC was adjusted for the regression to the mean phenomenon between the two measurements. The hazard ratios of the SOC difference scores were adjusted for initial SOC age and 12 somatic risk factors of mortality (alcohol consumption, blood pressure, body mass index, cholesterol concentration, physical activity, education, smoking, marital status, employment status, history of cancer, history of cardiovascular disease and diabetes). SOC was not stable among middle-aged Finnish men and a decline in SOC was associated with an increased hazard of all-cause mortality. In the fully adjusted model, a decrease of one standard deviation (SD) of the SOC mean difference increased the mortality hazard by about 35 %, two SDs decrease about 70 %, and 2.5 SDs about 100 %. Strengthening SOC showed a limited association with decreasing mortality hazards in the age-adjusted model. Policies, strategies, or plans, supporting SOC in the middle-age may help to decrease mortality and increase quality of life in later years.

Purpose of the research: Social exclusion threatens quality of life in older age. However, there is a lack of research on social exclusion from life-course and gender perspectives. We investigated early-and midlife risk factors for old-age social exclusion among women and men.

Materials and methods: Two individually linked studies of Swedish nationally representative samples provided longitudinal data over a 30-year period on 1,819 people at baseline. Indicators of economic exclusion, leisure/ social exclusion, and civic exclusion were assessed at early late life (M=70 years) and late life (M=81). Educational attainment, non-employment, psychological health problems and mobility problems were measured as risk factors at midlife (M=54) and late midlife (M=61). Path analysis derived a model of old-age social exclusion.

Results: Exclusion on a domain in early late life led to exclusion on the same domain in late life, except for the economic domain. Leisure/social exclusion in early late life also led to civic exclusion in late life. Midlife risk factors influenced late-life exclusion almost exclusively through early late-life exclusion. While model fit could not be significantly improved by allowing coefficients to vary freely by gender, there was a stronger effect of non -employment on exclusion in women and a stronger effect of psychological health problems on exclusion in men.

Conclusions: This study confirms that old-age exclusion is persistent and dynamic, and influenced by risk factors experienced earlier in life. A holistic approach with integrated efforts across different policy areas is needed to efficiently reduce old-age social exclusion.