Boo Johansson
University of Gothenburg, Department of psychology, Faculty Member
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Background Many surveys today use a web-survey as an alternative to more traditional survey modes. Yet, web-surveys targeting older individuals are still uncommon for various reasons. However, with younger cohorts approaching older age,... more
Background Many surveys today use a web-survey as an alternative to more traditional survey modes. Yet, web-surveys targeting older individuals are still uncommon for various reasons. However, with younger cohorts approaching older age, the potentials for web-surveys among older people might be improved. In this study, we investigated response patterns in a web-survey targeting older adults and the potential importance of offering a paper questionnaire as an alternative to the web questionnaire.Methods We analyzed data from three waves of a web-based retirement study, in which a paper questionnaire was offered as an alternative to the web questionnaire in the last reminder. We mapped the response patterns, compared web- and paper respondents and compared different key outcomes resulting from the sample with and without the paper respondents, both at baseline and after two follow-ups.Results Paper-respondents were more likely to be women, low educated, fully retired, non-married and ...
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Research Interests: Sociology, Psychology, Gerontology, Medicine, Logistic Regression, and 15 moreActivities of Daily Living, Humans, Female, Male, Psychological Intervention, Depressive Disorder, Health Status, Clinical Sciences, Aged, Longitudinal Studies, Longitudinal Study, Cohort Studies, Marital Status, Activity of Daily Living, and Rural Population
Background Cognitive dispersion, or inconsistencies in performance across cognitive domains, has been posited as a cost-effective tool to predict conversion to dementia in older adults. However, there is a dearth of studies exploring... more
Background Cognitive dispersion, or inconsistencies in performance across cognitive domains, has been posited as a cost-effective tool to predict conversion to dementia in older adults. However, there is a dearth of studies exploring cognitive dispersion in the oldest-old (>80 years) and its relationship to dementia incidence. Objective The main aim of this study was to examine whether higher cognitive dispersion at baseline was associated with dementia incidence within an 8-year follow-up of very old adults, while controlling for established risk factors and suggested protective factors for dementia. Methods Participants (n = 468) were from the Origins of Variance in the Old-Old: Octogenarian Twins study, based on the Swedish Twin Registry. Cox regression analyses were performed to assess the association between baseline cognitive dispersion scores and dementia incidence, while controlling for sociodemographic variables, ApoEe4 carrier status, co-morbidities, zygosity and lifest...
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Research Interests: Psychology and Cognition
ABSTRACT
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Neurology, Perception, Dementia, and 15 moreCognition, Medicine, Humans, Female, Male, Clinical Sciences, Aged, Cognitive Ability, Disease Progression, Cognitive Decline, Likelihood Functions, Neurosciences, Age of Onset, Cognition disorders, and Neuropsychological Tests
Research Interests: Psychology and Cognition
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Drawing on self-determination theory, the present study examined how satisfaction of the basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) changes across the retirement transition and how need satisfaction was related to... more
Drawing on self-determination theory, the present study examined how satisfaction of the basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) changes across the retirement transition and how need satisfaction was related to depressive symptoms across the retirement transition. Participants (N = 2655) were drawn from the HEalth, Ageing and Retirement Transitions in Sweden (HEARTS) study. Latent growth curve modeling showed that autonomy need satisfaction increased across the retirement transition, whereas competence and relatedness remained relatively stable. Higher need satisfaction was related to less depressive symptoms at baseline, however, pre-retirement need satisfaction was not a statistically significant predictor of subsequent changes in depressive symptoms (or vice versa) across the retirement transition. At the within-person level, higher than usual need satisfaction at a specific time point was related to less than usual depressive symptoms. Need satisfaction...
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Genetic and environmental risk factors are central concerns in dementia research. Through twin studies one can study the relative importance of genetic and environmental risk factors. One such study, based on the Swedish Twin Registry,... more
Genetic and environmental risk factors are central concerns in dementia research. Through twin studies one can study the relative importance of genetic and environmental risk factors. One such study, based on the Swedish Twin Registry, shows that genetic effects are of considerable importance for developing Alzheimer's disease, even late in life, but that environmental factors are also important. For vascular dementia, the results indicate that non-genetic factors are of primary importance.
Research Interests: Dementia, Medicine, Heredity, Sweden, Humans, and 7 morePubmed, Disease, Aged, Middle Aged, Twin Study, Alzheimer Disease, and Environmental Exposure
Research Interests: Psychology and Cognition
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Gerontology, Dementia, Aging, and 11 moreMedicine, Brain, Humans, Female, Male, Apolipoprotein E, Clinical Sciences, Aged, Autopsy, Genotype, and Neurosciences
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Background. The present study aimed to investigate the relative importance of genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in the elderly.Methods. Depressive symptoms were assessed through the Center for Epidemiological... more
Background. The present study aimed to investigate the relative importance of genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms in the elderly.Methods. Depressive symptoms were assessed through the Center for Epidemiological Studies – Depression (CES-D) scale. The CES-D scale was administered to 959 twin pairs (123 female MZs, 90 male MZs, 207 same-sex female DZs, 109 same-sex male DZs and 430 opposite-sex DZs) aged 50 years or older (mean age 72 years). A dichotomous depressed state variable was constructed based on CES-D cut-offs and self-reported use of antidepressant medication. Structural equation models were fitted to the data to dissect genetic and environmental variance components.Results. The sex-specific heritability estimates for depressive symptoms were 14% for males and 29% for females and 23% when constrained to be equal for men and women. The prevalence of clinically significant depressive symptoms was 16% for men and 24% for women. Heritability estimates for the dichotomous depressed state measure were 7% for males and 49% for females in the full model and 33% when constrained to be equal.Conclusion. Our results suggest that depressive symptoms in the elderly are moderately heritable, with a higher heritability for women than men, although differences in heritability estimates were not statistically significant.
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Objectives: The negative effects of overweight on cardiometabolic health is well-known. An increasing body of evidence extends the negative effects of midlife overweight to dementia. However, a different picture emerge when overweight is... more
Objectives: The negative effects of overweight on cardiometabolic health is well-known. An increasing body of evidence extends the negative effects of midlife overweight to dementia. However, a different picture emerge when overweight is assessed in late life. The time-varying effect of weight status on dementia was evaluated in two prospective Nordic population-based studies. Methods: The participants included in the Swedish Twin Registry self-reported their height and weight in 1963 (mean age 52.5 years). About 25 years later these twins were either included in the SATSA study (50 years and older) or the OCTO-Twin study (80 years and older). Dementia was consequently screened for and diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) criteria presently used at the time of diagnoses. The participants weight and height was assessed at baseline of the Finnish Lieto Study (mean age 70.8) and dementia was screened for and diagnosed according to the DSM-IV criteria eight years later. Results: Logistic regression analyses indicated that midlife overweight was associated with a greater risk of all cause dementia, odds ratio 1.55 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.18-2.04), when demographic and cardiometabolic risk factors and diseases were controlled for. However, Cox regression analyses indicated that for each unit increase in BMI score in late life, the risk of dementia decreased 8% (hazard ratio = 0.92, 95% CI = 0.87–0.97), when demographic and cardiometabolic risk factors and diseases were controlled for. The association remained significant when individuals who developed dementia during the first four years of follow-up were excluded from the analyses. Conclusions: Our results indicate there might be a time-varying effect of weight status on dementia. Preclinical dementia might blur the association between weight status and dementia in late life. This needs to be further analysed in studies following the same sample over the life course.
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The roles of genes and environments for Alzheimer´s disease in the Harmony study : Testing sex-limitation models with age adjusted thresholds
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Background: Aging is associated with an increasing risk of decline in cognitive abilities. The decline is, however, not a homogeneous process. There are substantial differences across individuals although previous investigations have... more
Background: Aging is associated with an increasing risk of decline in cognitive abilities. The decline is, however, not a homogeneous process. There are substantial differences across individuals although previous investigations have identified individuals with distinct cognitive trajectories. Evidence is accumulating that lifestyle contributes significantly to the classification of individuals into various clusters. How and whether genetically related individuals, like twins, change in a more similar manner is yet not fully understood. Methods: In this study, we fitted growth mixture models to Mini Mental State Exam scores (MMSE) from participants of the Swedish OCTO Twin study of oldest old monozygotic (MZ) and same-sex dizygotic (DZ) twins with the purpose of investigating whether twin pairs can be assigned to the same class of cognitive change. Results: We identified 4 distinct groups (latent classes) whose MMSE trajectories followed various patterns of change over time: a class...
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Background and Objectives Grip strength is a reliable marker of biological vitality and it typically demonstrates an expected decline in older adults. According to the common-cause hypothesis, there is also a significant association... more
Background and Objectives Grip strength is a reliable marker of biological vitality and it typically demonstrates an expected decline in older adults. According to the common-cause hypothesis, there is also a significant association between cognitive and physical function in older adults. Some specific cognitive functions have been shown to be associated with grip strength trajectories with most research solely focused on cutoff points or mean cognitive performance. In the present study, we examine whether a measure of cognitive dispersion might be more informative. We therefore used an index that quantifies dispersion in cognitive scores across multiple cognitive tests, shown to be associated with detrimental outcomes in older adults. Research Design and Methods Using repeated grip strength measures from men and women aged 80 and older, free of dementia in the OCTO-Twin study, we estimated aging-related grip strength trajectories. We examined the association of cognitive dispersion...
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This study assessed change in self–reported Big Five personality traits. We conducted a coordinated integrative data analysis using data from 16 longitudinal samples, comprising a total sample of over 60 000 participants. We coordinated... more
This study assessed change in self–reported Big Five personality traits. We conducted a coordinated integrative data analysis using data from 16 longitudinal samples, comprising a total sample of over 60 000 participants. We coordinated models across multiple datasets and fit identical multi–level growth models to assess and compare the extent of trait change over time. Quadratic change was assessed in a subset of samples with four or more measurement occasions. Across studies, the linear trajectory models revealed declines in conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness. Non–linear models suggested late–life increases in neuroticism. Meta–analytic summaries indicated that the fixed effects of personality change are somewhat heterogeneous and that the variability in trait change is partially explained by sample age, country of origin, and personality measurement method. We also found mixed evidence for predictors of change, specifically for sex and baseline age. This study demonstr...