USC Davis School of Gerontology representatives presented research at the 60th annual conference of the Gerontological Society of America in San Francisco this month.

Themed “The Era of Global Aging: Challenges and Opportunities,” the six-day convention provided a forum for USC faculty and graduate students to reveal findings from a variety of disciplines related to gerontology.

Biology and Aging

Caleb Finch, holder of the ARCO/William F. Kieschnick Chair in the Neurobiology of Aging, studies the genes that control aging in mammals. Ranked in the top half-percent of the world’s most cited scientists, his Nov. 17 presentation was packed with fellow biologists, industry professionals and graduate students.

Titled “Chance in the Genomics of Life History,” Finch discussed life history theory, which considers the balance between mortality and reproduction in passing genes from one generation to the next.

“The centerpiece of evolutionary biology is reproduction,” he said.

Finch identified the four determinants of aging: inherited genetic differences, random cell variation during development, endogenous cell damage and cell damage from external exposure such as infection and stress.

“A variety of factors determine the genomic window of individual variability so that only 30 percent of longevity is inherited,” he said. “These individual differences merit consideration as sources of the distinctive variations in the human lifespan that are not strictly controlled by genes.”

Demography and Aging

Eileen Crimmins, associate dean at the USC Davis School and holder of the Edna M. Jones Chair of Gerontology, discussed morbidity and disability trends in human populations in another well-attended symposium on Nov. 19.

Crimmins suggested reevaluating the research paradigm commonly used for examining health changes in societies.

“Instead of looking at disability as an outcome of health, we should instead focus on the factors that affect health and cause disability,” she said.

Crimmins believes biological factors such as measurements of cardiovascular health, metabolic function and levels of inflammation can offer novel insights on morbidity in populations throughout the world.

Psychology and Aging

A Nov. 19 press conference introduced new findings in aging and cognitive training from a joint study conducted by USC and Mayo Clinic researchers.

Principal investigator Elizabeth Zelinski, holder of the Rita and Edward Polusky Chair in Education and Aging, announced that computer-based brain fitness exercises can improve memory by an average of 10 years.

“This study underscores that just keeping mentally active is not enough,” Zelinski said. “You must challenge elemental processes of the brain through adaptive exercises to improve processing speed and accuracy in a way that generalizes to higher functions and that engages the brain’s attention and reward systems.”

That Monday evening, Bob Knight, the Merle H. Bensinger Professor of Gerontology and Psychology, compared and contrasted programs of geropsychology in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

For elders seeking help with mental health issues, there are many countries around the world in which the older adult population is growing faster than the number of providers to care for them. Having worked in each of these four countries, Knight discussed future directions of international geropsychology training.

“It is exciting to see the growth of training in professional geropsychology around the world,” Knight said. “A challenge shared by these four countries in continuing this growth is the education of professors of clinical geropsychology who can develop additional training centers.”

Sociology and Aging

For parents who wonder how they will be treated by their adult children in old age, Daphna Gans, a 2007 Ph.D. recipient from the USC Davis School, now with the RAND Corp., suggested examining how they are treating their own elderly parents.

Gans presented her findings on Nov. 18 with USC gerontology and sociology professor Merril Silverstein.

“Our results show that modeling a desired behavior to children is powerful even when the children are young adults,” Gans said. “Parents can affect their children’s future behavior toward them in several ways, including demonstrating parental care and fostering close relationship with them.”

Their study followed 237 mothers and their 379 offspring over 15 years. Those mothers who received the most support and practical help from their children provided similar care for their own parents and formed strong emotional bonds with their children.

Policy and Aging

Home hazard assessment and modification strategies are integral components of effective fall prevention interventions. A comprehensive assessment of the home is important for identifying hazards and for deriving specific intervention strategies.

Jon Pynoos, the UPS Foundation Professor of Gerontology, presented a poster on Nov. 19 with USC Davis School Ph.D. graduate Christy M. Nishita and current Ph.D. candidate In Hee Choi.

“There is great variation across existing home assessment tools in terms of their comprehensiveness, usability and reliability,” Choi said. “The most comprehensive home assessment tools are generally administered by occupational therapists who evaluate the interaction of the person with his/her environment in addition to evaluating the environment itself.”

Further efforts are needed, Choi added, to develop a reliable and valid yet user-friendly assessment of home hazards.

Along with fall prevention initiatives, innovative efforts to prevent elder abuse were a widely discussed topic at the conference.

Locally, the Los Angeles County Elder Abuse Forensic Center convenes a multidisciplinary team of legal, medical, law enforcement and social service professionals to address the county’s most severe and complex cases of elder and dependent adult abuse.

On Nov. 17, gerontology graduate students Zachary Gassoumis and Jeanine Yonashiro presented two posters along with Kathleen Wilber, the Mary Pickford Foundation Professor of Gerontology, and Keck School of Medicine of USC assistant professor Diana C. Schneider.

“We presented data that highlighted some of the interesting features of cases seen at the Forensic Center,” Wilber said. “Another of our posters demonstrated the center’s role in overcoming barriers faced by professionals seeking to address elder abuse.

“Given the complexity of the issues these professionals must confront and the number of different agencies involved in addressing elder abuse, the center offers an effective vehicle for addressing highly challenging cases,” she said.