Health-related issues impacting older adults

This volume highlights a range of health-related issues impacting older adults. The richness of the issue is seen in the diversity of older women’s medical issues represented. Medical incidents, including diabetes and sleep disturbance; osteoporosis among postmenopausal women; women living with HIV and Alzheimer’s disease; and the use of urinary catheters among older adults are examined in the context of gender. The collection begins with a discussion on older adults’ quality of life—the effect of gender and marital status among retired doctors (Peisah et al.) and the relations between walking and sleep disturbance among community-dwelling older adults with diabetes (Cheng et al.).

Beyond quality-of-life contributors to aging, medical conditions such as osteoporosis are frequently associated with aging. Osteoporosis is often referred to as a disease that reduces bone density and affects an estimated 200 million women (Kanis, 2007). Furthermore, one in three women are at risk for bone fractures resulting from osteoporosis (Melton, Chrischilles, Cooper, Lane, & Riggs, 1992). Research is an important tool in understanding and diagnosing osteoporosis among older adults and is discussed in two articles. First, Vitiello et al.’s article, “Use of Quantitative Ultrasound as Bone Mineral Density Evaluation in an Italian Female Population Living With HIV: A Real-Life Experience,” addresses detection of osteopenia/osteoporosis in the HIV female population. The second article on osteoporosis, Koutsofta et al.’s “The Effect of Protein Diets in Postmenopausal Women With Osteoporosis: Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials,” has implications for prevention.

In addition to the medical content this issue offers, a range of research approaches used in the study of older adults is broadly represented through a gendered lens. For example, in Burke et al.’s article, “Sex Differences in the Development of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Probable Alzheimer’s Disease as Predicted by Hippocampal Volume or White Matter Hyperintensities,” survival analysis of secondary data of magnetic resonance imaging from a national data set was conducted to predict progression to probable AD or MCI. Koutsofta et al., mentioned earlier, completed a systematic review of studies using randomized controlled trials in middle-aged to older women. And finally, Vitiello et al. conducted a multicenter cross-sectional study using “heel quantitative ultrasound” (QUS) measurements of bone density.

This issue is an impressive collection of medical and sociocultural factors impacting the health of older adult women and yet another affirmation of the journal’s commitment to multidisciplinary exploration of aging women’s lives.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict