Assistive device use among community-dwelling older adults

Online event

29/03/2018, 12:00 pm - TO 29/03/2018 - 1:00 pm

Organizer: CLSA/Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact

My Calendar
There is an increasing recognition that using assistive devices can support healthy aging. Minimizing discomfort and loss of function and increasing independence can have a substantial impact on persons with disabilities,  caregivers, and communities, physically, psychologically, and financially.
However, it remains unclear who uses assistive devices and what is the association between device use and social participation. The current analysis used CLSA baseline data from 51,338 older adults between the ages of 45-85. Measures of socio-demographic, health and social characteristics were analyzed by sex and age groups. Weighted cross-tabulations were used to report associations between independent variables and assisted device use (hearing, vision, and mobility). As the first step to investigate assistive device use among older adults in Canada, characteristics of device users were identified with respect to age, ethnicity, sex, income, education, marital status, health, and social networks.
Yoko Ishigami-Doyle is a Research Data Analyst at Health Data Nova Scotia in the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Dalhousie University. Yoko believes that evidence and population-based research is critical to support efficient and effective health services and improve health of people in Canada. Yoko was born and raised in Shizuoka, Japan, and moved to Canada, where she completed her undergraduate studies (BA History in Art, BA Psychology) at the University of Victoria. As a multiple-year Killam scholarship recipient, Yoko completed her M.Sc. and Ph.D. (Experimental Psychology) at Dalhousie. Her graduate research examined both basic and applied cognitive psychology throughout a person’s lifespan, examining individual differences in visual attention. Yoko’s postdoctoral training first included working at the Department of Psychiatry (Cognitive Health and Recovery Research Laboratory, Brain Repair Centre), where she investigated ways different attention functions change with age or age-related diseases.  Her second postdoctoral training was at the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology analyzing and evaluating population-based data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA). The CLSA is a large, national, long-term study following over 50,000 men and women between the ages of 45 and 85, and Yoko studied unmet needs for assistive device among older adults in Canada. Yoko lives in Dartmouth and enjoys swimming, sailing and canoe camping.