Mature Women Exposed
However, while older people are quite well protected against poverty, there are clear differences between men and women across much of the EU. The figure below illustrates these gender differences for different age groups. A value above zero in the figure indicates a higher share of women threatened by poverty or social exclusion as compared to men in the same age group.
mature women exposed
In contrast, when looking at women above age 65, a substantially higher risk of poverty or social exclusion than for their male counterparts becomes apparent. For the EU as a whole, this gender gap amounts to more than four percentage points for people between age 65 and 74, and increases to over six percentage points for those above age 75.
The often substantial gender gaps in pensions reflect the gender gaps in remuneration, working hours and duration of working lives that women faced during their working lives. Pay differences may be rooted in education and skills levels, as well as various forms of gender segregation and discrimination. Household and caring duties relating to children and frail older relatives fall mostly upon women who experience more career interruptions and part time work than men as a result. Finally, the statutory retirement age for women is still lower than that of men in some pension systems, which leads to shorter contributory periods and can result in lower benefits.
Further, the fact that older women often live alone tend to exacerbate their precarious economic situation as they cannot share costs which are not fully proportionate to household size (e.g., housing, insurance, electricity). 40 percent of women above age 65 live in a single household in the EU compared to only 19 percent of elderly men.
Nevertheless, women continue to have low-paid jobs, to work part-time and to interrupt their careers for reasons of care duties. Thus gender differences in old age poverty will not disappear in the foreseeable future; this would require much more determined efforts to achieve equal opportunities for women and men with regard to employment and professional careers.
The number of pigment-containing cells (melanocytes) decreases. The remaining melanocytes increase in size. Aging skin looks thinner, paler, and clear (translucent). Pigmented spots including age spots or "liver spots" may appear in sun-exposed areas. The medical term for these areas is lentigos.
Changes in the connective tissue reduce the skin's strength and elasticity. This is known as elastosis. It is more noticeable in sun-exposed areas (solar elastosis). Elastosis produces the leathery, weather-beaten appearance common to farmers, sailors, and others who spend a large amount of time outdoors.
Growths such as skin tags, warts, brown rough patches (seborrheic keratoses), and other blemishes are more common in older people. Also common are pinkish rough patches (actinic keratosis) which have a small chance of becoming a skin cancer. Skin cancers are also common and usually located in sun-exposed areas.
Exposures to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) have been associated with the emergence of depressive symptoms in older adulthood, although most studies used cross-sectional outcome measures. Elucidating the brain structures mediating the adverse effects can strengthen the causal role between air pollution and increasing depressive symptoms. We evaluated whether smaller volumes of brain structures implicated in late-life depression mediate associations between ambient air pollution exposure and changes in depressive symptoms. This prospective study included 764 community-dwelling older women (aged 81.6 3.6 in 2008-2010) from the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS) Magnetic Resonance Imaging study (WHIMS-MRI; 2005-06) and WHIMS-Epidemiology of Cognitive Health Outcomes (WHIMS-ECHO; 2008-16). Three-year average annual mean concentrations (scaled by interquartile range [IQR]) of ambient PM2.5 (in μg/m3; IQR = 3.14 μg/m3) and NO2 (in ppb; IQR = 7.80 ppb) before WHIMS-MRI were estimated at participants' addresses via spatiotemporal models. Mediators included structural brain MRI-derived grey matter volumes of the prefrontal cortex and structures of the limbic-cortical-striatal-pallidal-thalamic circuit. Depressive symptoms were assessed annually by the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale. Structural equation models were constructed to estimate associations between exposure, structural brain volumes, and depressive symptoms. Increased exposures (by each IQR) were associated with greater annual increases in depressive symptoms (βPM2.5 = 0.022; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) = 0.003, 0.042; βNO2 = 0.019; 95% CI = 0.001, 0.037). The smaller volume of prefrontal cortex associated with exposures partially mediated the associations of increased depressive symptoms with NO2 (8%) and PM2.5 (13%), and smaller insula volume associated with NO2 contributed modestly (13%) to the subsequent increase in depressive symptoms. We demonstrate the first evidence that the smaller volumes of the prefrontal cortex and insula may mediate the subsequent increases in depressive symptoms associated with late-life exposures to NO2 and PM2.5.
Infectious diseases account for one third of all deaths in people 65 years and older. Early detection is more difficult in the elderly because the typical signs and symptoms, such as fever and leukocytosis, are frequently absent. A change in mental status or decline in function may be the only presenting problem in an older patient with an infection. An estimated 90 percent of deaths resulting from pneumonia occur in people 65 years and older. Mortality resulting from influenza also occurs primarily in the elderly. Urinary tract infections are the most common cause of bacteremia in older adults. Asymptomatic bacteriuria occurs frequently in the elderly; however, antibiotic treatment does not appear to be efficacious. The recent rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (e.g., methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococcus) is a particular problem in the elderly because they are exposed to infections at higher rates in hospital and institutional settings. Treatment of colonization and active infection is problematic; strict adherence to hygiene practices is necessary to prevent the spread of resistant organisms.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the most frequent bacterial infection and the most common source of bacteremia in older adults.22 Table 64 compares UTI characteristics in older and younger patients. Factors that predispose older adults to UTIs include the use of urethral or condom catheters, and neurogenic bladders with increased residual urine. Contributing factors specific to gender include prostate enlargement in men, an increase in vaginal pH, vaginal atrophy that is due to postmenopausal estrogen depletion, and incomplete emptying of the bladder in women. These factors provide the opportunity for bacterial colonization and are likely to contribute to the higher rates of asymptomatic bacteriuria and UTIs in the elderly.23
Treatment for UTIs should be directed at the organism identified by Gram stain and culture. Unfortunately, polymicrobial infections occur in about 30 percent of patients and more often if the UTI is related to the use of a catheter.24 In these patients, use of a broad-spectrum antibiotic may be necessary. In general, seven days is an adequate duration of therapy in older women and 14 days in older men. The duration of therapy is routinely doubled for infections considered to be serious.24
UTIs are preventable by limiting the use of urinary catheters, and providing topical estrogen therapy for women and pharmacologic or surgical relief of prostatic hypertrophy for men. Physician awareness of these components of preventive measures is important to the care of the older adult.
The majority of people in rural developing counties still rely on unclean and solid fuels for cooking, putting their health at risk. Adult and elderly women are most vulnerable due to prolonged exposure in cooking areas, and Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) may negatively impact their health and cognitive function. This study examines the effect of IAP on the cognitive function of middle-aged and elderly rural women in India.
The study found that 18.71 percent of the rural women (n = 3,740) lived in Indoor Air Pollution exposed households. IAP was significantly found to be associated with the cognitive functional abilities among the middle and older aged rural women. Middle and older aged rural women exposed to IAP had lower cognitive functional abilities than non-exposed women. Comparing to the non-exposed group, the cognitive score was worse for those exposed to IAP in both the unadjusted (β = -1.96; 95%CI: -2.22 to -1.71) and the adjusted (β = -0.72; 95%CI: -0.92 to -0.51) models. Elderly rural women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to have cognitive impairment as a result of IAP.
Findings revealed that IAP from solid fuels could significantly affect the cognitive health of elderly rural women in India, indicating the need for immediate intervention efforts to reduce the use of solid fuels, IAP and associated health problems.
Air pollution is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide in 2019, with 6.67 million deaths from it and 3.6 percent of the disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) risk factors from Indoor Air Pollution (IAP), also known as household pollution [1]. Air pollution mostly generated by human activities has a detrimental effect on physical and mental health of human [2, 3]. Indoor Air Pollution is a significant environmental risk factor for a variety of respiratory illnesses, including acute and chronic respiratory infections, cancer [4,5,6] cardiovascular diseases, low birth weight, stillbirth, Tuberculosis (TB) and asthma, cataracts, and blindness [7,8,9]. World Health Organization (2019) reported that nearly 90 percent of people worldwide breathe polluted air. IAP is frequently regarded as one of the most significant factors of illness and mortality worldwide [1]. And it is worse in developing countries because people use dirty fuels like wood, animal dung, or crop wastes for cooking at home, especially in rural regions [10, 11]. Furthermore, burning biomass produces smoke which is one of the environmental issues mostly prevalent in developing countries [12]. Indoor air pollution is responsible for four percent of the worldwide burden of disease, primarily due to unclean cooking fuels which adversely effects on health of women, and elderly people spending a long time in cooking areas [11, 13, 14]. For domestic cooking, unclean biomass fuels are widely used, especially in developing countries and India. Along with the adverse effect on respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, low birth weight, stillbirth, cataracts, and blindness, it also effects on depression and cognitive dysfunction among adult and elderly people, especially on women [10, 15, 16]. 041b061a72