BACKGROUND Theories exist to challenge current practice, create new approaches to practice and remodel the structure of rules and principles. One question is whether nurses could find in psychosocial theories of ageing a theoretical foundation on which to base support of older people in their ageing process. AIM The aim of the present paper was to analyse five psychosocial theories of ageing ...

Ageing is a strong independent risk factor for disability, morbidity and mortality. Post-mitotic cells including those in the heart are a particular risk to age-related deterioration. As the occurrence of heart disease is increasing rapidly with an ageing population, knowledge regarding the mechanisms of age-related cardiac susceptibility and possible therapeutic interventions needs to be acqui...

Discourses on old age and ageing are framed in narrow and binary ways, either as a decline narrative or through discourses of positive and successful ageing. The decline narrative, on the one hand, is highly centred on the decline of the ageing body as frail, leaky and unbounded, and on how old age is characterised by non-productivity, increasing passivity and dependency. Discourses on successf...

Contemporary popular culture proposes new ideological associations between time, ageing, the body and personal identity projects. In a range of magazine texts, television shows and associated websites, several commercialised discourses equate ageing, and women’s ageing in particular, with the ‘ look’ of ageing. They project a version of personal ageing that is reversible and repairable, on the ...

In our societies, the proportions of elderly people and of obese individuals are increasing. Both factors are associated with high health-related costs. During obesity, many authors suggest that it is a high chronic intake of added sugars (HCIAS) that triggers the shift towards pathology. However, the majority of studies were performed in young subjects and only a few were interested in the int...

Angiotensin II (Ang II) plays important roles in ageing-related disorders through its type 1 receptor (AT1 R). However, the role and underlying mechanisms of AT1R in ageing-related vascular degeneration are not well understood. In this study, 40 ageing rats were randomly divided into two groups: ageing group which received no treatment (ageing control), and valsartan group which took valsartan ...

1. Classic evolutionary models interpret ageing as a cost of reproduction, but evolutionary research has thus far largely neglected the conceptual links between the evolution of ageing and a key mode of selection on male and female reproductive strategies – sexual selection and sexual conflict. 2. We synthesize ideas and evidence linking sex and ageing, and make the case that a focus on this fa...

Policies and programs designed to support ‘ageing well’ represent a key plank in government and community responses to the challenges of population ageing (1-3). Supporting ageing well might be defined as “the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age” (3 p.12). This is a broad goal, touching on virtually all the...

Positive ageing and other related terms (optimal, healthy, successful, active, productive ageing) are viewed as scientific concepts, most of them operationally described by a broad set of bio-psycho-social factors, assessed through objective and subjective indicators, as well as being closely related to lay concepts reported cross-culturally by older persons. From a semantic perspective most of...

The story of vascular ageing was first described in the seventeenth century when Thomas Sydenham wrote that ‘A man is as old as his arteries’. This aphorism was returned to publicity lately when Peter Nilsson reintroduced the concept of early vascular ageing. As vascular ageing is described a gradual process involving biochemical, enzymatic, and cellular changes of the vasculature and modificat...