Improving Motivation and Life Outlook in Older Adults through the Means of a Simple Tool
A recent study featured in the October edition of the Journal of Psychosocial Oncology presents a simple yet important motivation tool entitled the “Getting-Out-of-Bed measure” or GoB measure. This tool was designed by a team of scientists from the Boston University School of Medicine. The Getting-Out-of-Bed measure represents a tool for analyzing older adults` motivation and life perspectives. GoB measure is seen as very easy to understand and use technique to boost motivation, leading to an improvement in the health pathways and life results targeting the old adults.
The research underwent by the group of scientists was financed by a grant offered by the National Cancer Institute.
The older adults` population is significantly and continuously growing in the United States. Taking into consideration the demographic statistics, in the year 2006, from the total number of 37 million Americans 12% of them represented persons that were either 65 years or even older. It seems that by the year 2030, nearly 71.5 million people summing up 20% of the total United States population will comprise only persons who have reached the age of 65 years or are even older.
Looking at the range between 1992 and 2004, the median inflation-adjusted medical costs for older adults in the United States increased to $13,052 from $8,644 and this increasing tendency is prone to reach considerable values.
As investigators state these demographic and economic figures are of low importance compared to the comprehension of general illnesses and medical behaviors from the old adults` behalves. This is due to the fact that a high number of diseases could be prevented or transformed by intervening in the behavior of the adults.
As the leading author of this research, doctor Kerri Clough-Gorr from the Section of Geriatrics within the Boston University School of Medicine stated people`s motivation and life perspectives act as important factors in an old adult`s capability of getting better after a treatment for a specific disease or depressing moments and keep or have a behavior that is pro-health.
During their investigation, the team of scientists conducted inquiries over the telephone. They targeted a sample comprising 660 females that were suffering from breast cancer. The women came from a range of four different geographic areas from the United States. The telephone inquiries were made at ranges of three and six months. By using the simple tool entitled “Getting-Out-of-Bed measure”, the investigators put specific questions in order to examine the motivation and life perspectives of the targeted women. The females who scored equal or over 50 in the Getting-Out-of-Bed measure meant that they had a higher motivation. In statistics this meant that from the moment of reaching six months, the women were prone to enjoy good health behaviors and also an enhanced life quality. They also understood better the role of motivation and healthy behaviors, such as exercising, for their life span compared to those patients who scored below 50.
Doctor Clough-Gorr also claimed that by finding those persons who scored low on the Getting-Out-of-Bed measure grid, doctors could have the opportunity to improve their methods of treating them in order to stimulate motivation and help the people adopt and maintain an adequate health related behavior. This easy to use tool developed by the team of researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine is prone to help doctors in developing techniques so as to increase their patients` motivation level and life perspective.
