Showing 1 – 2 of 2 results.
Curated
Do Older Adults Know Their Spouses' End-of-Life Treatment Preferences? (ICPSR 25701)
Released/updated on: 2009-06-23
Geographic coverage: United States
When terminally ill patients become mentally incapacitated, their surrogates often make treatment decisions in collaboration with health care providers. The authors examined how surrogates' errors in reporting their spouses' preferences are affected by their gender, status as durable power of attorney for health care (DPAHC), whether they and their spouses discussed end-of-life preferences, and their spouses' health status. Structural equation models were applied to data from married couples in their mid-60s from the 2004 wave of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Surrogates reported their spouses' preferences incorrectly 13 percent and 26 percent of the time in end-of-life scenarios involving cognitive impairment and physical pain, respectively. Surrogates projected their own preferences onto their spouses'. Similar patterns emerged regardless of surrogate gender and status as DPAHC, marital discussions about end-of-life preferences, or spousal health status. Implications for the process of surrogate decision-making and for future research are discussed.
Self-published
Using Mixture Modelling to Construct Subgroups of Cognitive Aging in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (ICPSR 126561)
Released/updated on: 2020-11-15
Objectives: Longitudinal surveys of older adults increasingly incorporate assessments of cognitive performance. However, very few studies have used mixture modelling techniques to describe cognitive aging, identifying subgroups of people who display similar patterns of performance across discrete cognitive functions. We employ this approach to advance empirical evidence concerning inter-individual variability and intraindividual change in patterns of cognitive aging. Method: We drew upon data from 3,713 participants in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS). We used latent class analysis to generate subgroups of cognitive aging based on assessments of verbal fluency and episodic memory at ages 65 and 72. We also employed latent transition analysis to identify how individual participants moved between subgroups over the 7-year period. Results: There were four subgroups at each point in time. Approximately three-quarters of the sample demonstrated continuity in the qualitative type of profile between ages 65 and 72, with 17.9% of the sample in a profile with sustained overall low performance at both ages 65 and 72. An additional 18.7% of participants made subgroup transitions indicating marked decline in episodic memory. Discussion: Results demonstrate the utility of using mixture modelling to identify qualitatively and quantitatively distinct subgroups of cognitive aging among older adults. We discuss the implications of these results for the continued use of population health data to advance research on cognitive aging.