Using internet in retirement boosts cognitive function

by Lancaster University

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Using the internet during your retirement years can boost your cognitive function, a new study has found.

26 sep 2021--Researchers from Lancaster University Management School, the Norwegian University Science and Technology and Trinity College Dublin examined the cognitive function of more than 2,000 retired people from across Europe, and found that post-retirement internet usage is associated with substantially higher scores on tests.

The study, published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, uses data drawn from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) that collects information about the health, employment history and socio-economic status of older people.

Focusing on a sample of 2,105 older people from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland who have been retired since 2004, researchers examined retirees' cognitive function in both 2013 and 2015. They specifically focused on a word recall test, where individuals were asked to recall a list of 10 words immediately, and then again five minutes later.

Results found that, on average, people who used the internet after they retired were able to recall 1.22 extra words in the recall test compared to non-internet users. However, retirees who used the internet were also more likely to be male, younger, better educated, and have been retired for a shorter period. They also appear to be in better health—even though they drink and smoke more.

Dr. Vincent O'Sullivan, a co-author from Lancaster University Management School said: "Our results reveal that using the internet, post-retirement, leads to a marked reduction in the rate of cognitive decline.

"Interestingly, this protective effect was found to be most significant amongst women, with female retirees who regularly surfed the internet able to recall 2.37 more words compared to women who didn't go online. The results were also consistent among men, with retired internet users able to recall 0.94 more words than men with similar characteristics who didn't use the internet.

"We also found that retirees who used computers in their jobs before retirement were more likely to keep using computers once they retired, and hence had better cognitive function."

Researchers compared the cognitive function of retirees who used to work in jobs where computers were commonplace to retirees who worked in jobs where computers weren't often used. For example, among teachers, computers became common in the workplace much later than sectors such as financial services. Their results revealed that people with pre-retirement exposure to computers were more likely to continue to use them once they retired.

Among the overall results, the researchers also found a stark difference in the patterns of internet usage between European countries, with no more than 12% of retirees using the internet in Italy, compared to over 60% in Denmark.

"Research has shown that retirement from the workforce is a critical period for cognitive function, which declines with age and can be a predictor for a range of key health outcomes among older people," said co-author Likun Mao, formerly a Ph.D. student at Lancaster but now at Trinity College Dublin. "Although there is a widespread belief that computer usage improves older people's cognitive function—such as memory, attention, spatial abilities and problem solving—there has been mixed evidence from previous studies.

"We were able to discern that pre-retirement computer usage does not directly influence post-retirement cognitive decline, and we ensured our results referred only to post-retirement internet usage."

Professor Colin Green, of the Norwegian University Science and Technology, added: "Within our study we estimated statistical models which controlled for individuals' ages, education levels, occupational skills and years since retirement, so we are confident that our results are robust and relate only to the use of the internet, post retirement.

"This sets it apart from other studies and raises the interesting question of what it is about internet use exactly, that drives this positive effect on cognitive function. Interacting with others online, finding out information in order to attend social activities or simple tasks like shopping online can all make life easier for retirees, but we are yet to understand which, if any, of these tasks actually go as far as improving cognitive performance."

More information: Colin P. Green et al, Internet usage and the cognitive function of retirees, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.08.013

Provided by Lancaster University 

 

Frequent internet use by older people during lockdown linked to mental health benefits

by University of Surrey

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

A new study from the University of Surrey has found that among people aged 55 to 75 more frequent use of the internet was beneficial for mental health and quality of life under lockdown. Those who used the internet more, particularly for staying in touch with friends and family, were at lower risk of depression and reported a higher quality of life.

25 april 2021--Loneliness and social isolation have been major problems for many under lockdown, and for older peoplein particular.Loneliness raises risk of depression and othernegative health outcomes.In a paper published in the journalHealthcare,researchers from Surrey investigated whether more frequentinternet use in older people helped reduce this risk.

Researchers studied 3,491 individual participants drawn from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging in Summer 2020, whilst social distancing measures were in place across the country. Participants were surveyed on the frequency and type of their internet usage—such as information searching or for communication purposes.

Those who reported using the internet frequently (once a day or more) had much lower levels of depression symptoms and reported higher quality of life compared to those who used the internet only once a week or less. Using the internet for communication was particularly linked to these beneficial effects, suggesting that going online to stay connected with friends and family helped combat the negative psychological effects of social distancing and lockdown in adults aged 55-75.

Conversely,the study found that people who mostly used the internet to search for health-related information reported higher levels of depression symptoms. This might be due to a greater degree of worry triggered by reading COVID-19 and other health-related internet sources.

Dr. Simon Evans, lecturer in neuroscience at the University of Surrey, said: "As social restrictions continue during the COVID-19 pandemic, older people are at greater risk of loneliness and mental health issues. We found that older adults who used the internet more frequently under lockdown, particularly to communicate with others,had lower depression scores and an enhanced quality of life. As theCovid-19 situation evolves, morefrequent internet use could benefit the mental health of older people by reducing loneliness and risk of depression, particular if further lockdowns are imposed in the future."

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More information: Anna-Stiina Wallinheimo et al. More Frequent Internet Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic Associates with Enhanced Quality of Life and Lower Depression Scores in Middle-Aged and Older Adults, Healthcare (2021). DOI: 10.3390/healthcare9040393

Provided by University of Surrey 

Older people are more digitally savvy, but aged care providers need to keep up

by Dr. Wendy Wrapson, The Conversation

Moving into aged care can affect a person’s ability to remain connected to their local community, but most aged care facilities don’t provide access to digital devices. Credit: www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-SA

Older adults are more digitally connected than ever, even though their uptake of internet-based technologies remains lower than for younger age groups.

27 mar 2019--Today's senior citizens are likely to spend their spare time tweeting about their social lives and Facetiming their grand kids. This is good news because research shows that social interactions benefit us.

The drive to join the digital community is no doubt influenced by social media becoming an important platform for news and information, sharing experiences and connecting with friends and family. Nevertheless, age-related gaps in digital engagement ("the digital divide") still exist.

As our research shows, people who live in aged care environments are at risk of being excluded from the digital world.

A digital community

Moving into aged care can affect a person's ability to remain connected to their local community. The facility might be some distance away from the neighbourhood in which they have lived. They may be unable to travel to maintain relationships.

Low levels of social connectedness and participation are related to poor health and higher mortality risks, as well as a significant reduction in quality of life. Family can provide an important source of social contact and support but geographic distance can again make frequent visits difficult.

Digital engagement in later life might not always be desired or possible. But access to online resources can enhance older adults' well-being through improved access to information and more frequent social interactions.

The social internet

An early study reported psychosocial benefits from providing computer training in internet use for aged care residents. These include improvements in life satisfaction and lower levels of depression and loneliness. In another study, a once weekly video conference with a family member had a positive impact on loneliness and perceived social support.

But there is little information on informal and unstructured use of the internet by residents because the use of digital technologies in aged care remains largely invisible. Residents are omitted from many surveys and reports.

In a recent Swiss study, where all residents in a facility were offered wi-fi access, 14% used the internet. This percentage is similar in that age group living in the community.

Staying connected

We conducted telephone interviews with over 70 members of the public who had a family member or friend living in residential aged care. We spoke to family and friends rather than seniors because we wanted to hear about residents who had physical and mental challenges, as well as healthy seniors who tend to volunteer for research. To reduce the risk of bias, we did not mention in our study advertising that we wished to talk to people about technology use.

Our research highlighted the enthusiasm with which many older people have adopted digital technologies. Nearly half of the 80 residents spoken about owned a computer or a smartphone. The average age of residents was 86 years, and the oldest was 102. Sometimes the family had purchased a device for the resident, specifically to make communication easier.

Mobile phone calls, texts and emails were the most common methods of communication using these devices. Technology not only enabled residents to interact with family and friends they seldom saw (for example, those overseas) but also resulted in increased interactions with people who visited more often. While dementia and other serious health issues reduced the likelihood of uptake, the frequency of personal visits was not affected by technology use.

Family help

Importantly, family members were essential to residents' digital connectedness. They often bought the device, set up software and troubleshooted any technical problems. They were also involved in the day-to-day use of technology. For example, some residents used video conferencing, but needed assistance to initiate the call.

Interviewees endorsed the use of digital devices if they were used to supplement social contact, rather than supplanting it. The majority reported that they were not aware of computers being available for residents in common areas of the facility they visited.

Aged care operators do not generally provide wi-fi access to residents. They have to arrange this with their own internet provider. These deficits are of concern because residents don't always have family or friends to help them become digitally connected.

Devices were also often criticised for their small keys and buttons which are difficult to manage for arthritic hands and by people with vision impairments. Older users, it seems, must try to adapt their abilities to devices that have been designed for younger people.

Senior citizens are an important consumer group which is only going to increase in number in the future. The time has come for aged care operators and the technology industry to engage in meaningful efforts to meet their needs.

Provided by The Conversation

Internet searches create illusion of personal knowledge, research finds

Searching the Internet for information may make people feel smarter than they actually are, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

02 april 2015--"The Internet is such a powerful environment, where you can enter any question, and you basically have access to the world's knowledge at your fingertips," said lead researcher Matthew Fisher, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in psychology at Yale University. "It becomes easier to confuse your own knowledge with this external source. When people are truly on their own, they may be wildly inaccurate about how much they know and how dependent they are on the Internet."

In a series of experiments, participants who searched for information on the Internet believed they were more knowledgeable than a control group about topics unrelated to the online searches. In a result that surprised the researchers, participants had an inflated sense of their own knowledge after searching the Internet even when they couldn't find the information they were looking for. After conducting Internet searches, participants also believed their brains were more active than the control group did. The research was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

For nine experiments, a range of 152 to 302 participants were recruited online, with different participants taking part in each experiment. In one experiment, the Internet group used online searches to research four questions (e.g., "How does a zipper work?") and provided a website link with the best answer. The control group was given the exact text from the most common website used by the Internet group to answer the questions. Both groups then rated their ability to answer other questions (e.g., "Why are cloudy nights warmer?") on topics unrelated to the Internet searches, although they didn't have to answer those questions. The Internet group members consistently rated themselves as more knowledgeable than the control group about those unrelated topics.

The Internet group reported an inflated sense of personal knowledge after Internet searches even when its members could not find complete answers to very difficult questions (e.g., "Why is ancient Kushite history more peaceful than Greek history?") or when they found no answers at all because of Google filters that were used. The cognitive effects of "being in search mode" on the Internet may be so powerful that people still feel smarter even when their online searches reveal nothing, said study co-author Frank Keil, PhD, a psychology professor at Yale.

In another experiment, participants who did online searches thought their brains would be more active than the control group, and they chose magnetic resonance images of a brain with more active areas highlighted as representative of their own brains. This result suggests that the participants searching the Internet believed they had more knowledge in their heads, rather than simply thinking they knew more because they had access to the Internet, Fisher said.

The use of Internet searches, not just access to the Internet, appeared to inflate participants' sense of personal knowledge. When the Internet group members were given a particular website link to answer questions, they didn't report higher levels of personal knowledge on the unrelated topics than the control group.

People must be actively engaged in research when they read a book or talk to an expert rather than searching the Internet, Fisher said. "If you don't know the answer to a question, it's very apparent to you that you don't know, and it takes time and effort to find the answer," he said. "With the Internet, the lines become blurry between what you know and what you think you know."

The growing use of smartphones may exacerbate this problem because an Internet search is always within reach, Keil said, and the effects may be more pronounced when children who are immersed in the Internet from an early age grow up to be adults.

An inflated sense of personal knowledge also could be dangerous in the political realm or other areas involving high-stakes decisions, Fisher said.

"In cases where decisions have big consequences, it could be important for people to distinguish their own knowledge and not assume they know something when they actually don't," he said. "The Internet is an enormous benefit in countless ways, but there may be some tradeoffs that aren't immediately obvious and this may be one of them. Accurate personal knowledge is difficult to achieve, and the Internet may be making that task even harder."

More information: "Searching for Explanations: How the Internet Inflates Estimates of Internal Knowledge;" Matthew Fisher, MA, Mariel K. Goddu, BA, and Frank C. Keil, PhD; Yale University; Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, online, Mar. 31, 2015.

Provided by American Psychological Association

How the internet is transforming our experience of being ill

The last decade has seen a remarkable shift in how people use the internet in relation to their health and it is now talked of as a routine feature of being ill.

06 mar 2014--Professor Sue Ziebland, Director of the Health Experiences Research Group, based in the Nuffield Department of Primary Health Care at the University of Oxford, will share these findings with health practitioners and researchers at the South West Society for Academic Primary Care (SW SAPC) meeting hosted by the Centre for Academic Primary Care at the University of Bristol, today [Thursday 6 March].

This study examined interviews with patients conducted between 2001 and 2013 and explored how people talked about the internet, capturing changing attitudes towards the use of the internet for health across the last decade.

In the early 2000's people who sought health information online saw themselves as particularly engaged, expert and activated patients. By 2013 the web had become an almost routine part of many people's experience of health and illness. The internet has transformed how people make sense of and respond to symptoms, decide whether to consult, make treatment choices, cope with their illness and connect to others.

The study found that people want more than just information online, they also seek reflections, insights and practical advice from other patients. Every year millions of people use sites such as Oxford's http://www.healthtalkonline.org to learn about their health issues from other patients. Film, animations, sound, pictures and personal experiences online make health information more digestible for people from all backgrounds. By helping people to learn about their condition, prepare for consultations and demonstrate to doctors their interest and involvement, the web may even help to undermine some health inequalities.

Increasingly doctors are aware of this and recommend useful sites to their patients yet, even in 2013, patients were reluctant to talk to their doctors about what they find online, fearing that such revelations might damage their relationship with their doctor.

Professor Sue Ziebland said "GPs and nurses who recognise that people are using the internet when they are ill can support and discuss the information with their patients; those who do not recognise this shift can unwittingly undermine and patronise their patients."

Provided by University of Bristol

Surfing the net helps the elderly stay connected

Seniors in rural areas are embracing new technology, according to a University of Adelaide study. 

The internet is giving older people in rural areas a new lease on life, according to a report released today by the University of Adelaide.

27 sept 2012--Surfing the net, using Skype, email and social networking sites is literally keeping older people "connected" with their communities, says lead report author Dr Helen Feist.

Dr Feist, the Deputy Director of the Australian Population and Migration Research Centre at the University of Adelaide, has spent the past three years investigating how technology can be used in remote and rural areas of Australia to improve the lives of older people.

The project, which was funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, looked at the best ways of encouraging older people to adopt new technology in a non-threatening way.

A survey in the Murray Lands region of South Australia found that nearly 25% of people aged 80 years and over and more than a third of those in the 65-79 year age bracket were open to learning new technologies.

"In order for people to remain integrated within a world that increasingly relies on new technology, it is important that older people are offered opportunities to adopt and use these new technologies such as computers, smart phones, personal tablets and the Internet," says Dr Feist.

Study participants introduced to iPads and laptop computers quickly embraced the new technology, reporting a 30% increase in comfort levels with computers and the internet after using them over a 12-month period.

"Older adults who adopt new skills as they age improve their confidence, health, enjoy richer levels of social and civic engagement and are more resilient to life stressors and crises," Dr Feist says.

"New technology is enabling older people to keep connected regardless of location, distance or mobility."

Dr Feist says the most important motivator among the elderly for taking up new technologies is to stay connected to family and friends.

"Their willingness to learn suggests there is indeed an untapped market for information and communication technology training in rural areas.

"Given the right device, along with personalised training and support, older people of all ages will take up and continue to use new technology," Dr Feist says.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including better financial support for seniors for learning new technologies; subsidies for Internet connections; and the introduction of `come and try' programs in local community centres.

Provided by University of Adelaide

What's that symptom? Experts warn of self-diagnosis via the web

Many people prone to leap to worst-case conclusions when investigating own ailments, study finds.

28 july 2012-- Got a weird ache or pain? A rash that's hung around too long? With the wealth of information now available at the click of a mouse, it's common to search the Web to figure out what may be wrong with you.

But a new study suggests that when the symptoms are your own, "self-diagnosis" via the Internet -- or anywhere but a doctor's office -- too often leads to inaccurate, worst-case conclusions.

Research suggests that people tend to overestimate their own risk for serious ailments, in a way that they wouldn't do if they were thinking about someone else's symptoms.

"This is particularly true when the disease is rare," said study co-author Dengfeng Yan, a doctoral student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "That is, given the same set of symptoms, people will overestimate their own likelihood of getting such rare (often serious) diseases than that of other people."

The study was published online recently in the Journal of Consumer Research and will appear in the journal's February 2013 print issue.

In a series of six experiments, Yan and co-researcher Jaideep Sengupta gave nearly 250 college students information about such diseases as flu, HIV, osteoporosis and breast cancer.

In the experiment on flu, for example, the students were told they were simply being tested on what they knew about the illness. But the researchers then told them to imagine that they had a number of symptoms -- cough, fever, runny nose, headache -- and then asked whether they thought they had "regular" flu or the (at the time) rarer and scarier H1N1 "swine" flu. They were also asked to diagnose a hypothetical "someone else" with these symptoms.

According to the researchers, when referring to their own symptoms people were much quicker to diagnose the rarer H1N1 strain of flu compared to if they thought the symptoms were someone else's. In other words, their accuracy in correctly gauging the likelihood of H1N1 infection dropped if they were thinking about their own symptoms.

Why the difference? "We explain these effects using the concept of psychological distance," Yan said. With distancing -- in other words, thinking about someone else rather than yourself -- people tend to rely more on broader information such as statistics (that is, the likelihood any one person will get disease X) and less on information specific to the individual, such as the symptoms he or she is having.

"Consumers often fear the worst when it comes to their own health, while maintaining a calm objectivity with regard to others," Yan said. If you've got pain in the chest, you think: heart attack. If a friend of a friend has the same symptoms, you say: probably indigestion.

But this type of thinking can have downsides, the authors write, often leading "to mistakenly diagnosing oneself as possessing a serious disease, causing both unnecessary anxiety and wasteful medical expenditure." They add that, "mistaken self-diagnoses of this sort are particularly likely given the ease of information access on the Internet, which frequently leads consumers to engage in 'symptom-matching' exercises."

The findings ring true with Dr. Peter Galier, an internal medicine specialist at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, who reviewed the findings.

"I think it's human nature," he said. People are much more likely to worry about themselves and family members, he said, than about strangers.

Getting information via the Web can also make it difficult to decide what symptoms mean in the absence of a doctor's analysis. "When people are able to access a lot of information that isn't filtered, and they don't have expertise in the field, they don't know how to prioritize the information," Galier explained.

That's true whether you're investigating that strange knocking noise in your car but have no clue about mechanics, he said, or whether you've just spotted a lump in your thigh and have no medical expertise.

For instance, a healthy young man may have just drank a very cold soda and then has crushing chest pain. If he looks that up online, he is likely to see that the symptoms may point to a heart attack, Galier said. But that information doesn't take vital facts such as the man's age and medical history into account, he said. "Chest pain in a 55-year-old guy is looked at much differently than in a 25-year-old guy," he said.

Instead of doing amateur diagnosing on their own, Yan said, "We advise people to see a real doctor."

And as the new study points out, ''The advantage of seeing a real doctor isn't just because he or she is an expert," he said. "It's also that they aren't you."

For that reason, they will take into account less "emotional" information, such as how many people in the population actually get the condition you worry that you might have.

And what about that worrying time before you can get to your doctor's office? "People may simply tell the situation to their colleagues," Yan said, since they're likely to put those symptoms into a less panicked perspective.

Patients trust doctors but consult the Internet

Patients look up their illnesses online to become better informed and prepared to play an active role in their care  not because they mistrust their doctors, a new University of California, Davis, study suggests.

09 july 2012--The study surveyed more than 500 people who were members of online support groups and had scheduled appointments with a physician.

"We found that mistrust was not a significant predictor of people going online for health information prior to their visit," said Xinyi Hu, who co-authored the study as part of her master's thesis in communication. "This was somewhat surprising and suggests that doctors need not be defensive when their patients come to their appointments armed with information taken from the Internet."

With faculty co-authors at UC Davis and the University of Southern California, Hu examined how the study subjects made use of support groups, other Internet resources, and offline sources of information, including traditional media and social relations, before their medical appointments.

The study found no evidence that the users of online health information had less trust in their doctors than patients who did not seek information through the Internet.

"The Internet has become a mainstream source of information about health and other issues," Hu noted. "Many people go online to get information when they anticipate a challenge in their life. It makes sense that they would do the same when dealing with a health issue."

Although physician mistrust did not predict reliance on the Internet prior to patients' medical visits, several other factors did. For example, people were more likely to seek information online when their health situation was distressful or when they felt they had some level of personal control over their illness. Online information-seeking was also higher among patients who believed that their medical condition was likely to persist.

The study also found that Internet health information did not replace more traditional sources of information. Instead, patients used the Internet to supplement offline sources, such as friends, health news reports and reference books.

"With the growth of online support groups, physicians need to be aware that many of their patients will be joining and interacting with these groups. These patients tend to be very active health-information seekers, making use of both traditional and new media," the study said.

Almost 70 percent of the study subjects reported they were planning to ask their doctor questions about the information they found, and about 40 percent said they had printed out information to take with them to discuss with their doctors. More than 50 percent of subjects said they intended to make at least one request of their doctor on the basis of Internet information.

"As a practicing physician, these results provide some degree of reassurance," said co-author Richard L. Kravitz, a UC Davis Health System professor of internal medicine and study co-author. "The results mean that patients are not turning to the Internet out of mistrust; more likely, Internet users are curious information seekers who are just trying to learn as much as they can before their visit."

Online support groups provide online virtual meeting places for sharing information and social support. In February 2011, there were more than 12,000 groups listed in the support category of Yahoo! Groups Health and Wellness directory. Even so, other studies suggest that only 9 percent of Americans and 37 percent of patients with chronic disease have participated in online support groups. The majority of subjects assessed their own health as fair or poor.

More information: The study, "The Prepared Patient: Information Seeking of Online Support Group Members Before Their Medical Appointments" was published earlier this year in the Journal of Health Communication.

Provided by UC Davis

SNS: Web Surfing Linked to Brain Function in Older Adults

Internet use shows activation of regions affecting working memory and decision-making

22 oct 2009 -- In middle-aged and older adults who have minimal experience with the Internet, Web surfing for a short period of time may improve brain function, according to research presented this week at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, held from Oct. 17 to 21 in Chicago.

Teena D. Moody, Ph.D., of the Semel Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles, and colleagues studied 24 neurologically normal volunteers aged 55 to 78 years with minimal Internet experience. The researchers performed functional magnetic resonance imaging scans before and after the participants conducted Internet searches for one hour per day on seven days during a two-week period.

At baseline, the researchers found that individuals with minimal Internet experience showed brain activity in regions controlling language, reading, memory and visual abilities in the frontal, temporal, parietal, visual and posterior cingulate regions. After seven days of Internet use, however, they found that these individuals showed brain activity in these same regions, as well as in the middle frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus, which are important for working memory and decision-making.

"These results suggest that Internet training can affect the neural circuitry activation pattern and offers a potential application of cognitive enhancement in older adults," the authors write.

Internet Use Cuts Depression Among Senior Citizens

17 oct 2009--Spending time online reduces depression by 20 percent for senior citizens, the Phoenix Center reports in a new Policy Paper released today. In addition to the quality of life benefits, the Policy Paper said reducing the incidence of depression by widespread Internet use among older Americans could trim the nation's health care bill.

"Maintaining relationships with friends and family at a time in life when mobility becomes increasingly limited is challenging for the elderly," says Phoenix Center Visiting Scholar and study co-author Dr. Sherry G. Ford, an Associate Professor of Communications Studies at University of Montevallo in Alabama. "Increased Internet access and use by senior citizens enables them to connect with sources of social support when face-to-face interaction becomes more difficult."

The Policy Paper, Internet Use and Depression Among the Elderly, examines survey responses of 7,000 retired Americans 55 years or older. The data was provided by the Health and Retirement Study of the University of Michigan and screened to exclude respondents who were still working and also those living in nursing homes in order to limit possible variations that might skew the findings. These limitations reduced the size of the sample from the initial 22,000 to 7,000, but that is still far larger than all previous efforts to consider the effect of Internet use on psychological well-being of the elderly population. Age 55 is the common age cut off for studies of the elderly. Unlike many existing studies on the benefits of broadband, the statistical methodologies used in the analysis aim to determine causal effects and not simply measure correlations.

Phoenix Center President Lawrence W. Spiwak says, "This is the most advanced statistical analysis on the social impacts of broadband to date, and the most believable. If policymakers want better data analysis, they now have it. The study raises the bar for credible statistical analysis when formulating broadband policy."

The implications of the findings are significant because depression affects millions Americans age 55 or older and costs the United States about $100 million annually in direct medical costs, suicide and mortality, and workplace costs. The Pew Internet & American Life Project estimates that only about 42 percent of Americans aged 65 or more use the Internet, far below the adoption rate of other age groups. Given the relatively low adoption rates by seniors, the study concludes that the opportunity for better health outcomes from expanded Internet adoption is substantial. Further, with billions spent annually on depression-related health care costs, the potential economic savings also are impressive. "Efforts to expand broadband use in the U.S. must eventually tackle the problem of low adoption in the elderly population," says study Phoenix Center Chief Economist and study co-author Dr. George S. Ford. "The positive mental health consequences of Internet demonstrate, in part, the value of demand stimulus programs aimed at older Americans."

The Phoenix Center is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that studies broad public-policy issues related to governance, social and economic conditions, with a particular emphasis on the law and economics of telecommunications and high-tech industries.

Source: Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Studies

Pain, a Limp and Winkle Picker’s Disease

By DENISE GRADY
30 sept 2008--Doctors who treat themselves may have fools for patients, but they look like geniuses compared with a reporter who tried to diagnose herself via the Internet.
It seemed so simple. I Googled “foot pain,” and up came two sites with neat little pictures of feet, arrows pointing to various parts and instructions to “click where it hurts.” I clicked and, voila! both sites said my pain — on the top and side of the foot, around the big toe — was probably from a bunion or gout.
Gout? Hmmph. What came to mind was Henry VIII, the movie version, hugely fat and grotesque on his throne, bellowing about his toe. As for bunions, weren’t they from pointy shoes, high heels, a family history? I had none of those. This wasn’t quite adding up.
Onward I clicked. I took fleeting comfort from a slide slow of hideous foot diseases that I clearly didn’t have. Lists of other ailments didn’t match, either. I don’t have diabetes or flat feet and I hadn’t injured myself. One site mentioned leprosy, which had drama but seemed unlikely. I was baffled.
A podiatrist, recommended by a doctor friend, took about 37 seconds to figure out what was wrong. He shoved my big toe up and down, gave it a squeeze that made me shriek and said smugly, “We’ll take some X-rays, and I’ll show you what’s causing your pain.”
A few minutes later, there it was on his computer screen: a bone spur, sticking up like a tiny, evil spike where the big toe joins the rest of the foot. The cause was arthritis of the big toe, which sounds ridiculous even to me. But it’s real, a wearing out of the cartilage that normally protects the bones from rubbing against each other. I’ve always walked a fair amount — at least three miles a day, often twice that or more in recent years — and at 56, I guess it’s catching up with me. Without realizing it, I’ve been wearing out my feet.
The medical name for this condition is hallux limitus, which means “stiff toe.” It’s progressive, and can turn into hallux rigidus — a really stiff toe. It’s humbling to be hobbled by such a comical-sounding ailment.
The podiatrist recommended shoes with stiff, rounded soles called rocker bottoms, to minimize bending of the joint. I figured out that I also needed lots of room in the toe, to avoid pressure on the spur. He said a cortisone shot into the joint might help. (It didn’t.) He also suggested shoe inserts, orthotics, but I was skeptical because I’ve had knee surgery and I feared the inserts might throw my knees out of whack.
Finally, he said I would eventually need surgery to remove the spur and shorten a bone. He said he could perform it right there in his office, and the sooner the better. At that point, if I’d been able to run, I might have. Instead, I nodded politely and said I’d think about surgery. But it sounded drastic.
I retreated to the Internet. Self diagnosis had been a lost cause (I would have done better had I Googled “toe pain”), but at least it was noninvasive. And knowing the name of the ailment made a big difference. Among other things, the Web cheered me up by revealing that hallux limitus is also called winkle picker’s disease (winkles are snails, and in England, winkle pickers used to be a nickname for pointy shoes, if that makes any sense). Unfortunately, I also found out that it can sometimes be disabling. Three of the more useful links were Arthritis Practitioner (www.arthritispractitioner.com, search for hallux limitus), eMedicine (www.emedicine.com/orthoped, click on foot and ankle) and Foot Physicians (www.footphysicians.com, foot and ankle information).
Some of the information echoed the podiatrist’s advice about shoes, and through trial and error I did find one type that seems to minimize the pain — clogs with firm soles and soft uppers. They are far from stylish, but limping is worse.
Doctor No. 2 was an orthopedic surgeon, who also wanted to operate. When I hesitated, he smirked and said, “When it hurts enough, you’ll come back.” No I won’t! I wanted to snap, but didn’t. He left before I could even ask how many toes he had fixed or what his success rate was. I limped home, feeling like a wimp.
Doctor No. 3 offered to inject a joint-lubricating drug into my toe. It sounded promising, but I chickened out, in part because the drug was approved for knees and not toes and in part because it would cost $2,800, but mainly because the doctor’s nose ran constantly and he let it drip everywhere, including onto a consent form explaining the risk of infection from the treatment.
Back on the Web, I found plenty of fellow sufferers. The patient forums fascinated me, especially the ones where people compared notes about surgery (www.healthboards.com, search hallux limitus; and www.foot.com, click on foot cafe, then message boards, and search hallux limitus). Some had good results, but others wished they had never had the operation — enough to reinforce my ideas about postponing it. Graphic surgical photos put me off, too (www.mdmercy.com, search hallux rigidus). In addition, I have not been able to find a convincing report on success rates, which are hard to sort out because there are different types of hallux limitus and different operations.
So, I have been muddling along for about a year now, walking a bit less, biking a bit more, wearing frumpy shoes and hoping that even if my foot wasn’t getting better, at least maybe it wouldn’t get worse. Recently, at my internist’s urging, I saw doctor No. 4, a podiatrist who specializes in noninvasive treatments. He had some new ideas about shoes and padding to protect the spur, and he didn’t seem to think my foot was all that bad. I told him I had always imagined that one day I’d put on a backpack and walk across continents, but lately was starting to give up on the idea.
“You might still make it,” he said. “Just start with a small continent.”

People Want To Make Their Own Diagnosis On The Internet

Norwegians are ready to make their own diagnosis on the internet rather than sit in endless queues at the doctor's surgery, claim BI researchers Tor W. Andreassen and Even J. Lanseng in a recent study.Demand for health services is growing and leading to a sharp rise in health expenditure in Norway, as in the rest of the world. Our health service is itself not entirely healthy and it is struggling with tight budgets, low staffing levels and long queues.One day, Professor Tor W. Andreassen sat in a never-ending queue at the doctor's surgery with a coughing and sickly young child and had plenty of time to ponder.The child was perhaps not desperately ill, but ill enough to go to the doctor's to find out what was wrong."What if we could make the diagnosis with the aid of self-service technology?" he pondered and what would it take to make people really start to use a system for self-diagnosis.Pioneers on the internetTor W. Andreassen is Professor of Marketing at the BI Norwegian School of Management. By using self-service technology in the private sector, he has raised both productivity and satisfaction levels. But can this be transferred to the national health service?Together with Associate Professor Even J. Lanseng at the BI Norwegian School of Management, Andreassen has carried out two empirical studies to assess whether the population is ready for new self-service technology and what attitudes we have towards making our own diagnosis on the internet.The results will now be published in the international scientific periodical, the International Journal of Service Industry Management.In the first study, the researchers interviewed 160 randomly selected inhabitants of Asker and Bærum to assess the technological maturity of the population. When we see how well developed the use of the internet and mobile services is, it is perhaps not so surprising that the selected group gained a high points total for technological maturity."The results show that this group are pioneers who are reasonably ready to start using new technological solutions. It is a good starting point from which to introduce self-service technology for public health services too."Anticipated utility valueThe BI researchers then carried out a study amongst 470 inhabitants in Oslo to find out their attitudes towards the use of new technology to make their own diagnosis on the internet.The study shows that the anticipated benefit is the most important factor in relation to carrying out a self-diagnosis on the internet. In brief, we except to get answers to what we are concerned about and would use self-diagnosis if it meant we would not have to go to the doctor's."The anticipated benefit is more important than user-friendliness. However, user-friendliness also has a positive role to play. For many, it is also a condition that the solutions have been developed by professionals who have a high level of trust in the population," says Tor W. Andreassen.Major benefitsThe Norwegian health service can achieve considerable benefits through the greater use of self-service technology. Enabling patients to make their own diagnosis on the internet will reduce queues and the demand for health services.Against the background of the study, Tor W. Andreassen gives three pieces of advice to the Norwegian health authorities as regards how they should get people to start using a new self-diagnosis system:1) Focus on the anticipated benefit and convenience for users.2) Focus on developing user-friendly solutions adapted to the users' technological maturity.3) Use acknowledged specialists to develop the systems so that users can be certain of getting good help from the technology.

Internet Use Can Boost Breast Cancer Patients' Faith in Docs

Often, high-quality info validates what physicians have already told them, study finds
FRIDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) -- Checking out high-quality breast cancer information online not only keeps patients informed about their disease, it may also boost their opinion about their doctor, new research shows.
Previous studies have found that many breast cancer patients go online to learn more about their disease. This is the first study to look at how patients' opinions about their doctors affect how they seek online information and support, and how the Web affects how patients regard their doctors, the study authors said.
In the study, a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center of Excellence in Cancer Communications Research tracked the opinions of 231 recently diagnosed breast cancer patients who were given a free computer and Internet access. The women were also trained to use an online health education and support system called Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS) "Living With Breast Cancer" program.
The researchers found that frequent use of the online information services was associated with both a poor doctor-patient relationship to begin with and with patients becoming more satisfied with their doctors later on.