Aged Health

Last update: 28 September 2009,
by Maureen Bell

I've divided this page into two sections. The first provides you with some tips on searching for material on Medline, and the second provides links to other Australian and overseas web resources, including some full text material.

You will find material on mental disorders in old age on my mental health/psychiatry page.

Searching Medline

You will find material on aged health issues in Medline, but you will need to be aware of the thesaurus (MeSH) terms used to search for this group of people.

Sometimes you will find the age factor as part of the term - for example Health Services for the Aged, while at others you will need to add the age category to the name of a health problem.

One of Medline's great advantages is its list of age groups which you can use when searching. You will find these listed in the Mesh Database.

MeSH Age Groups List

Many topics in MeSH have hierarchies of more specific subcategories or related terms. The indentations in the lists reflect the structure of the hierarchy, and the + signs at the end of terms indicate that there is a further hierarchy of terms not displayed here. Any of these terms can be searched individually, or you can "explode" terms to search sections of the list. If you focus on Aged and look at the finer subdivisions you will find

Aged, 80 and over
Frail Elderly

"Exploding" Aged will retrieve articles on aged generally, but will also search for the more specific categories of Aged, 80 and over, or Frail elderly.

Below is a simple example of a search for articles on prevention of falls in older people.

COMBINE

Accidental Falls (MeSH term)
Falls due to slipping or tripping which result in injury.

AND

Aged (MeSH term)
A person 65 through 79 years of age. For a person older than 79 years, AGED, 80 AND OVER is available.

PubMed Search Formulation

This search strategy uses the headings accidental falls and aged. The section in the square brackets includes majr - which focuses the search on articles where the subject is a major issue in the article. I've added a subheading to accidental falls - "pc" which stands for "prevention and control". Other subheadings I could have chosen are - economics, mortality, statistics and numerical data, or trends. Most MeSH terms have subheadings which can be applied to them, and this is the range of options available for accidental falls.

For a list of the abbreviations used for subheadings in PubMed click here

In this search I have chosen to exclude adults, middle age, children and adolescents.

NOT (adult[mh:noexp] OR middle age[mh] OR child[mh])

This is because I want to find articles which deal only with the aged NOT articles which deal with children or adults too. PubMed's default setting is to "explode" all terms, and so I've had to specify that I don't want it to explode the term adult (as I would otherwise end up with a search which contradicted itself by including the category Aged, and then excluding it). The search is then limited to articles which are in English or which have English abstracts.

Click here to see how it works. PubMed search.

You can also limit searches by aged groups by performing a search and then applying age limit options from the "Limit" fields.

Australian Sources

Ageing (ABS)
Resources from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Ageing and Aged Care (AIHW)
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare portal, which includes links to the full text of a large number of publications dealing with aged care.

The Ageing Australian Population and Future Health Costs: 1996 - 2051
Prepared by Clive Cooper and Philip Hagan, Information and Research Branch, Portfolio Strategies Division in the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care. Department of Health and Aged Care, Occasional Papers, New Series No. 7, 1999.

Ageing Gracefully: An Overview of the Economic Implications of Australia's Ageing Population Profile
Prepared for the Department by Peter Crowley and Greg Cutbush from ACIL Consulting Pty Ltd. Department of Health and Aged Care, Occasional Papers, New Series No.10, 1999.

ARCHI - Older Person Chronic Disease Model of Care
ARCHI is the Australian Resource Centre for Healthcare Innovations.

Disability and Ageing: Australian Population Patterns and Implications
Principal author Xingyan Wen, with Ros Maddern and Nicola Fortune. Canberra, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2000. The study is designed to provide information to assist disability support service providers and senior policy makers faced with questions about the likely impacts of population ageing on disability prevalence, support services and availability of informal assistance.

Health Report - Ageing
Transcripts from Radio National's Health Report, with Norman Swan.

National Health and Medical Research Council. Publications. Aged Care
Most have full text available online.

Older Australia at a Glance, 2007 (4th. Ed)
Jointly published by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Overseas Sources

Adding life to years : report of the Expert Group on Healthcare of Older People
This report was written in January 2002 by the Chief Medical Officer for The Scottish Executive Health Department (SEHD).

An Aging World: 2001
Kinsella, Kevin, and Velkoff, Victoria. An Aging World: 2001. Washington D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001 (U.S. Census Bureau, Series P95/01-1)

AgingStats.Gov - Web Site of the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics
Includes the full text of Older Americans: Key Indicators of Well-Being, an interagency report covering health status, risks, and care of older people in the United States.

Care of the Elderly - The Commonwealth Fund
Publications on aged care from the Commonwealth Fund.

HealthandAge.com
From the Novartis Foundation for Gerontology, a site with information for the public and for health care professionals, physicians and researchers.

Healthy Aging - State of Aging and Health in America Report
This report assesses the health status and health behaviors of U.S. adults aged 65 years and older and makes recommendations to improve the mental and physical health of all Americans in their later years.

Journals on Aging
This excellent site from Rutgers University provides details to assist researchers and academics from various disciplines choose appropriate journals for submission of articles for publication.

Merck Manual of Geriatrics (Internet Edition)
Editor in Chief: Mark H. Beers

Merck Manual of Health and Aging
Editor in Chief: Mark H. Beers

The National Academies Press: Aging
The full text of a number of books on various aspects of ageing and health is available here.

National Service Framework for Older People
From the Department of Health in the U.K.

NHS Evidence - Later life
Rsources on older people's health from the National Health Service in the U.K.

NIHSeniorHealth Health Information for Older Adults
This website for older adults was developed by the National Institute on Aging and the National Library of Medicine, both part of the National Institutes of Health.

Preventing Falls Among Older Adults t
From the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in the United States.

Royal Commission on Long Term Care for the Elderly
Published by the Department of Health (U.K.) this Commission examines the funding of long term care for the elderly.

Teaching/Training Models on Trends in Health and Aging
Developed and maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the American Society on Aging (ASA), these modules deal with trends in health care utilization, health-related behaviors, and health care expenditures of the United States population.

Why is Health Treatment for the Elderly Less Expensive than for the Rest of the Population? Health Care Rationing in Germany
From the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, a working paper by Hilke Brockmann, January 2000.

With Respect to Old Age: Long Term Care - Rights and Responsibilities
(A Report by The Royal Commission on Long Term Care Chairman: Professor Sir Stewart Sutherland. The Stationery Office, March 1999). Final Report of the Commission.

World Population Ageing: 1950-2050
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division. New York, United Nations, 2001.