Hello Felicia,
Great post. To help older adults remain independent, clinicians' emphasis is on predicting
and, if possible, minimizing progression of chronic disease and declines in overall health.
Several efforts have been developed to address a single aspect of health; however, to support
aging in place, a holistic approach to assessment of older adults' well-being and health is needed.
To date, methodologies are lacking that address the holistic and multidimensional assessment of
health and wellness. The challenge in taking this approach is to assess and integrate various data
sources to provide a comprehensive assessment of older adults' health (Hung et al., 2023). A
further challenge is then to customize such assessment based on individual healthcare needs.
Technology applications have the potential to introduce tools that enable nonobtrusive
monitoring of multiple parameters and their progress over time, assess relationships among
parameters, and, ultimately, ways to identify patterns and trends as well as cases where an
immediate intervention may be needed.
Reference
Hung, S. T., Cheng, Y. C., Wu, C. C., & Su, C. H. (2023). Examining physical wellness as the
fundamental element for achieving holistic well-being in older persons: review of
literature and practical application in daily life. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare,
1889-1904. https://doi.org/10.2147/JMDH.S419306
Hi Marina,
You have written a great discussion. Variables or parameters of wellness have been
explored pair-wise to assess how they may interrelate. For example, decline in functional status
has been found to correlate with a decline in cognition in patients with Parkinson's disease and
Alzheimer's disease. Similarly, a structured strength and balance training program in frail,
cognitive impaired elderly long-term care residents improved both functional and cognitive
ability (Yi, & Park, 2022). Social isolation has been found to be associated with slower recovery
of systolic blood pressure post-task and higher cholesterol level in response to stress. Spirituality
may also influence blood pressure, immune function, depression, and mortality. Technological
advances and tools are enabling us to collect, store, and analyze ever-increasing amounts of
multivariable clinical data (Yi, & Park, 2022).
Reference
Yi, Y., & Park, Y. H. (2022). Factors related to subjective health status in community-dwelling
older adults living alone on low income. Journal of Muscle and Joint Health, 29(3), 205-
217. https://doi.org/10.5953/JMJH.2022.29.3.205
Howard, E. P., & Louvar, K. E. (2017). Examining life goals of community-dwelling, low-
income older adults. Research in Gerontological Nursing, 10(5), 205-214.
