Optimistic Elders Live Longer
Older adults with a "rosy" outlook are not just more fun to be around; they will also be around longer than a pessimist, even if they have heart disease.
Research reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine earlier this year caught my attention as well as the attention of most of the national news services.
The research authored by Drs.
Gramling and Epstein really just repeated what a lot of medical researchers around the world have been reporting for a lot of years.
In their specific case, the authors, however, could say with statistical confidence that patients who had had cardiovascular events, but who were also optimistic, tended to outlive their more pessimistic counterparts.
As a geriatric care manager, I think that is great news to share with my clients.
This was a study of older adults who had experienced a cardiovascular event, and the researchers followed nearly 3,000 of these people over 15 years to see how they fared.
Even with substantial heart issues still in play, thirty percent more of the optimistic group than their pessimistic counterparts survived for the duration of the 15-year study.
This held true even across the forty percent who had depression or other conditions on top of their heart disease.
People who were optimistic consistently survived longer.
In other research among only women reported last year, optimistic women have a lower risk of developing heart disease or dying from any cause compared to pessimistic women.
The researchers in the most recent study admit that not everybody is going to be optimistic, but they found that consistently the optimistic patient "has a plan.
" They ask questions that will help them move forward despite their heart issues.
In fact, among the recommendations that have come out of the study, cardiologists strongly encourage cardiac rehabilitation.
It is an exercise and stress reduction program that helps patients to get back on their feet jump start their recoveries from their cardiac events.
A way to further enhance the potential for an optimistic view in such patients, the doctors add, is to help empower the patients, to be supportive and to help them exercise.
All of these efforts from, for instance, a caregiver can help maximize the chances for a positive outcome as well as a longer life.
This underscores one of the important functions a geriatric care manager fills, that of care planner.
I find the best - some would say the only - way to develop a care plan for a client is to actively engage them in the process when possible.
They then own the plan, and the researchers from the study probably would agree that this engagement makes these clients more "optimistic.
"
Research reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine earlier this year caught my attention as well as the attention of most of the national news services.
The research authored by Drs.
Gramling and Epstein really just repeated what a lot of medical researchers around the world have been reporting for a lot of years.
In their specific case, the authors, however, could say with statistical confidence that patients who had had cardiovascular events, but who were also optimistic, tended to outlive their more pessimistic counterparts.
As a geriatric care manager, I think that is great news to share with my clients.
This was a study of older adults who had experienced a cardiovascular event, and the researchers followed nearly 3,000 of these people over 15 years to see how they fared.
Even with substantial heart issues still in play, thirty percent more of the optimistic group than their pessimistic counterparts survived for the duration of the 15-year study.
This held true even across the forty percent who had depression or other conditions on top of their heart disease.
People who were optimistic consistently survived longer.
In other research among only women reported last year, optimistic women have a lower risk of developing heart disease or dying from any cause compared to pessimistic women.
The researchers in the most recent study admit that not everybody is going to be optimistic, but they found that consistently the optimistic patient "has a plan.
" They ask questions that will help them move forward despite their heart issues.
In fact, among the recommendations that have come out of the study, cardiologists strongly encourage cardiac rehabilitation.
It is an exercise and stress reduction program that helps patients to get back on their feet jump start their recoveries from their cardiac events.
A way to further enhance the potential for an optimistic view in such patients, the doctors add, is to help empower the patients, to be supportive and to help them exercise.
All of these efforts from, for instance, a caregiver can help maximize the chances for a positive outcome as well as a longer life.
This underscores one of the important functions a geriatric care manager fills, that of care planner.
I find the best - some would say the only - way to develop a care plan for a client is to actively engage them in the process when possible.
They then own the plan, and the researchers from the study probably would agree that this engagement makes these clients more "optimistic.
"
