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A multidimensional view of out-of-home behaviors in cognitively unimpaired older adults: examining differential effects of socio-demographic, cognitive, and health-related predictors

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Abstract

Previous studies on predictors of out-of-home behavior (OOHB) have often neglected the multidimensional nature of this construct. The present study distinguished between two levels of analyzing OOHB: out-of-home mobility seen as single behavioral units (e.g., number of places visited, action range, and walking) versus OOHBs seen as engagement in integrated, larger activity units (e.g., cognitively and physically demanding activities). We examined whether a differential relationship between these levels of OOHBs with established predictors of OOHBs, i.e., socio-demographic variables, cognitive abilities, physical functioning, and depression, exists. A sample of 100 cognitively healthy, community-dwelling adults with a mean age of 70.8 years underwent a multi-method OOHB assessment using GPS- (out-of-home mobility) and questionnaire-based (out-of-home activity engagement) measures. Predictors were assessed based on internationally implemented procedures. Regression analyses showed that walking-based mobility and engagement in physical activities could be predicted by physical functioning, whereas most effects of socio-demographic variables, such as age and gender, and of depression on OOHBs were negligible. At the bivariate level, episodic memory was related to action range, global mobility, and to cognitively demanding activity engagement, but not to walking, whereas executive function was related with physically demanding activity engagement only. However, some of these connections became weaker in the full predictor model. Findings support the notion that it is necessary to assess OOHB as a multiple-indicator construct.

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Notes

  1. The Trail Making Tests A and B as indicators of executive functions assess the time needed to complete the tasks; thus, lower values indicate better performance. Both tests originally had positive loadings on the executive functions factor. For a simpler interpretation of the factor scores, we transformed them by multiplying each factor score by “−1” so that higher values imply better executive functioning.

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Acknowledgments

The SenTra Study was supported by the German Research Foundation from 2008 and 2011 through a grant to Hans-Werner Wahl (WA809/11-1). We would like to thank our Israeli and German research partners from geography, psychiatry, and social work for their excellent cooperation and support. Heike Hercher provided the expert rating for distinguishing cognitively and physically demanding activities in her Master’s thesis in Psychology. In addition, we would like to thank Katharina Hager, Heike Hercher, Hannah Schmidt-Friderichs, and Johanna Martinez-Slebi, Elke Voss and Florian Wernicke for outstanding support in collecting and processing the data of the project. We are also very thankful to the older adults who graciously participated in the study.

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  1. Department of Psychological Ageing Research, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Markus Wettstein & Hans-Werner Wahl

  2. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Manfred K. Diehl

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  1. Markus Wettstein
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  2. Hans-Werner Wahl
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Wettstein, M., Wahl, HW. & Diehl, M.K. A multidimensional view of out-of-home behaviors in cognitively unimpaired older adults: examining differential effects of socio-demographic, cognitive, and health-related predictors. Eur J Ageing 11, 141–153 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-013-0292-6

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