When older adults enter long-term care (LTC) and change physicians, comprehensive patient handoff notes are essential to mitigate discontinuity; however, how family physicians engage with information exchange during LTC transitions remains unclear.

Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with family physicians to explain their information exchange activities during LTC transactions, as well as barriers and enabling factors.

Handoff notes often contained minimal information, but some physicians maximized the form, provided additional documents, communicated directly with the receiving LTC team, and/or prepared families to transmit information on behalf of their loved one. Suboptimal information transfer was linked to systemic constraints associated with the physicians’ practice capacity, but also to their personal perceptions of the value of the information transmitted to LTC.

The optimization of family physicians’ ability to facilitate informational continuity during LTC transitions may require developing minimal standards for form completion, improving interprofessional collaboration during transitions, and improving LTC education experience during medical training.

The present study investigated Stroop interference effects in young adult and older deaf American Sign Language (ASL) and English bilinguals with ASL and English stimuli.

Deaf ASL-English bilinguals (n = 108; aged 21–88) signed their responses in two computerized Stroop tasks, one with ASL videos of color signs and one with printed English color words. Participants saw 120 trials in each language with 84 congruent and 36 incongruent trials.

Even though participants responded in ASL in both tasks, Stroop effects were larger with English than with ASL stimuli in both response times (RTs) and errors, a pattern of results not typically seen in spoken-language bilinguals (in which Stroop effects are often smaller between-languages than within-languages). Older participants showed larger Stroop effects than younger participants, especially in English RTs. Aging effects in error rates were not significant in either language.

The finding of larger Stroop effects in deaf signers with English rather than ASL stimuli suggests a possibly critical role for modality of presentation in eliciting Stroop effects. Additional work is needed to determine why English is more sensitive to aging effects in deaf signers, and which language will be most sensitive for detecting cognitive impairment in this population.

Although virtual supports may promote engagement with brain-healthy lifestyle behaviours among aging adults, few are designed with the needs of end-users in mind.

This qualitative study explored the needs and preferences of integrating virtual peer support into brain health programs among Canadian adults aged 55 years and older.

Five semi-structured focus groups (22 participants, n = 18 women) were conducted and analyzed using thematic analysis.

Participants discussed different brain-healthy behaviours and outlined barriers and facilitators to maintaining a brain-healthy lifestyle. Most women reported perceived differences in experiences between genders, whereas most men did not perceive any gender differences in terms of brain-healthy lifestyles. Participants indicated interest in virtual supports that provide education on brain health, include peer support, promote social engagement, and empower aging adults to maintain autonomy.

Findings underscore the importance of designing person-centered and gender-responsive virtual brain health programs that reflect aging adults’ lived experiences to foster resilience.

Antiretroviral therapy has transitioned human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) into a manageable chronic condition. As such, advance care planning is critical to providing patient-centered care for aging persons with HIV. The objectives of the study were to determine the proportion of adults living with HIV in Southern Alberta with a documented goals of care designation and explore factors influencing this documentation.

This was a cross-sectional study conducted at Southern Alberta HIV Clinic in Alberta, Canada. Participants were adults ≥18 years receiving HIV care during the study period (January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2023). Age, sex, family physician status, emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalizations, and goals of care documentation were extracted from the electronic health record. Descriptive statistics and chi-square tests were used to analyze associations.

Ten percent (255/2567) of adults with HIV had a goal of care documentation in the electronic health record. Documentation did not differ by age, sex, or family physician status. Among patients with an ED visit in the prior year, 21% (225/1065) had a goal of care documentation compared to 2% of those without (p < 0.0001). Among those hospitalized in the prior year, 56% (203/364) had a goal of care documentation, compared to 2% of those without (p < 0.0001).

A minority of adults living with HIV had a goal of care documentation.. These findings highlight missed opportunities and areas for improvement for advanced care discussions. There is an urgent need to enhance advanced care planning in this population.

Traditional risk factors for cognitive impairment in non-Latino White adults do not manifest the same level of risk in Latinos. Despite research investigating culturally relevant factors, including acculturation, as it relates to Latino cognition, few studies have incorporated contextual factors for a more wholistic approach. We investigated acculturation-related factors within the context of socioenvironmental factors to study cognition in 8,476 self-identified Hispanic/Latino adults 45 years and older participating in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos baseline visit (2008–2011).

Acculturation-related (e.g., nativity, social/language-based) and socioenvironmental contextualizing factors at the individual-level (e.g., social network size, social isolation) as well as the neighborhood-level (e.g., income inequality, deprivation) were determined via questionnaire or geospatial coding. Cognitive tests included verbal learning and memory, letter fluency and digit symbol substitution. We included all acculturation in context variables in the same regression models as predictors of the separate cognitive outcomes (i.e., global and the four test-specific cognitive scores) adjusting for age at baseline, sex, and education.

Higher language- and social-based acculturation scores, later ages of migration, US-based parental nativity, greater familial structural support, fewer experiences of unfair treatment, as well as lower levels of neighborhood gentrification, income inequality, and deprivation were associated with higher global cognition. Many of these same variables were associated with test-specific cognitive performance.

This study, one of the first of its kind in Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos, suggests that contextualizing acculturation as it relates to cognition may point toward specific factors that may influence successful aging in middle-aged and older Hispanics/Latinos.

Canada’s aging population faces a growing homelessness crisis, affecting groups such as older migrants. Older migrants experiencing homelessness may encounter intersecting forms of housing precarity, exclusion, and marginalization that shape their relationships with the host country and service systems.

Using a postcolonial lens, this study explores how older migrants experiencing homelessness navigate housing precarity and relate to the host country, with particular attention to the role of gratitude in their experiences of housing and support.

The study draws on 22 qualitative interviews with older migrants experiencing homelessness across three Canadian cities. Thematic analysis was used to identify patterns in participants’ experiences and narratives.

Performative gratitude emerged as an overarching theme, with experiences of exclusion and marginalization and comparative frameworks of safety identified as key sub-themes. While participants expressed appreciation for receiving housing and other forms of support, this gratitude was often rooted in trauma, social norms, and perceptions of relative safety. In some cases, performative gratitude masked unmet needs and constrained participants’ ability to critique services or advocate for change.

Gratitude can function simultaneously as a survival strategy and as a mechanism that may reproduce silence around unmet needs. These findings call for a shift from charity-based housing supports toward rights-based, culturally responsive systems that recognize older migrants experiencing homelessness not merely as recipients of aid, but as rights-bearing individuals. More equitable housing responses should create spaces in which appreciation and critique can coexist without jeopardizing access to essential support.

Estimating functional independence is a critical component of neuropsychological evaluations in older adults. Commonly, three methods are used to estimate a patient’s ability to engage in instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs): (1) rating scales of functional independence and (2) performance-based measures comprising IADL tasks (reflecting two face-valid approaches), and (3) performance-based measures of executive functions (EF; reflecting a more theory-based approach). The purpose of the present study was to compare these three methods’ abilities to predict independent IADL capacity at home.

Community-dwelling older adults (n = 114) completed self-report and performance-based measures of IADLs, as well as traditional tests of EF at baseline. Following, participants completed the DAILIES protocol comprising 3 weeks of IADL tasks (e.g., paying bills, rescheduling appointments, etc.) performed independently at home.

Analyses showed that (a) EF performance speed and self-reported IADLs emerged as unique predictors (i.e., beyond each other) of the accuracy of the DAILIES task completion, and (b) EF performance speed also accounted for variance in the timeliness of DAILIES task completion. These relationships held beyond general cognitive status. However, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses revealed that only EF performance speed had utility in identifying participants with below average accuracy and timeliness on the DAILIES protocol.

These findings suggest that traditionally measured EF may have more incremental utility than at least some more face-valid predictors (i.e., certain performance-based or self-reported IADLs) in predicting independent IADL capacity at home, at least among older adults without a diagnosis of a cognitive disorder.

Older adults with mental health (MH) issues often struggle to navigate a complex and fragmented healthcare system, leading to poorer outcomes. To address this, an acute care hospital in Ontario partnered with a community agency to develop an innovative MH Patient Navigation Program supporting older adults across the care continuum. Two Occupational Therapists were hired as Navigators.

A patient-tracking tool was codesigned to document patient characteristics, provided supports, and outcomes.

Using a cohort observational design, data were analyzed to describe patient demographics, referral reasons, complexity, navigator interventions, scope of practice, and program impact.

Patients were mostly female (58.5%) with a mean age of 71.7 years. Common MH conditions included mood disorders (31.4%), substance misuse (21.6%), anxiety (13.7%), and psychotic disorders (11.8%), with 41.1 per cent having a secondary MH condition. Navigators delivered multifaceted supports, with navigation, counselling, and home safety being most common.

Findings highlight program value and areas for refinement.