Linking Older Adults’ Daily Activities With Well-Being and Cognition: Examining Moderators and Mediators

Abstract Increasingly more studies are showing that daily activities can be beneficial to wellbeing and cognitive abilities of older adults, but discussions about through which psychological mechanisms daily activities are associated with wellbeing and cognitive health have been scarce. This symposium, including three ambulatory assessment studies and one cross-sectional study, presents emerging theoretical hypotheses and recent empirical findings on this matter. Specifically, with 5-6 days of observations from 313 older adults, Brown and colleagues show that greater daily activity diversity is related to older adults’ higher overall cognitive functioning (executive functioning, memory, and crystallized intelligence). Hueluer and colleagues examine the moderating role of interaction modality on the relation of daily social interactions with wellbeing using data from 116 older adults over 21 days. Their results show that more face-to-face interactions — but not telephone or digital interactions — are associated with higher positive affect and lower loneliness. With data from 153 older adults over 15 days, Luo and colleagues show the mediating effect of positive affect in the association between momentary working memory performance and subsequent social activity engagement. Sharifian and colleagues show the mediating effects of solitary-cognitive activities in the association between depressive symptoms and global cognition, using cross-sectional data from 453 older adults, and also examine the moderating role of race. Finally, Tom Hess will serve as a discussant and provide an integrative discussion of the papers, informed by his extensive work on daily activities, motivation, and aging.

Since 2006, the Georgetown University School of Medicine has offered a two-week elective in Geriatrics for third-year medical students.Students rotate through diverse clinical experiences, including general geriatrics, geriatric neurology, physical medicine & rehabilitation, memory disorders, Parkinson's and dementia, and palliative care.In addition, students learn about arts, humanities & ethics, communication skills, and taking the patient's perspective.In Fall 2019, pre-pandemic, we added virtual reality (VR) experiences focused on hearing & vision loss, Alzheimer's disease, and end-of-life conversations created by Embodied Labs.Curricular goals included increasing students' empathy and sensitivity, decreasing ageism & stereotyping, and increasing clinical knowledge.Findings suggest regardless of pandemic (pre vs. during) or modality (in-person vs. Zoom) that after participating in the VR labs, students are slightly more comfortable taking care of older adult patients with dementia as well as hearing & vision loss, and participating in end-of-life conversations.

LEARNING HUMANITIES AND ETHICS OF AGING THROUGH THE LENS OF AN AVATAR CREATION Gay Hanna, and Yoon Chung Kim, Georgetown University, Washington DC, District of Columbia, United States
The main goal of teaching the humanities and ethics of aging is to understand the perspectives of older individuals as they address the challenges and opportunities presented across the aging spectrum.To encourage understanding of this humanistic and ethical process, students were given an assignment to select a profile of an older person with preselected characteristics that they then develop into their avatar, a virtual companion, to accompany them through the course.This assignment included three iterations of the avatar narrative related to what is studied in class around major life transition points related to work, housing, and end of life.These assignments included the creation of Mind Maps which illustrate their avatar's ongoing concerns related to their environment including their social determinants of health.The avatar's formative development throughout the course brought forward discussions around identity, safety, autonomy, and person-centeredness in terms of gerontological practice and policy.

OLDER ADULTS AS VIRTUAL SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS IN COVID GRADUATE EDUCATION Sonya Barsness, Georgetown University, Washington DC, District of Columbia, United States
COVID-19 has further illuminated the need for educational approaches in gerontology that are person-centered and experiential.Ideally, this includes in-person experiences with students and older adults.Through their classroom participation as subject matter experts in aging, older adults share their personal experiences, and react to gerontological theories and ideas.Shared learning offers a platform for exploration of shared humanity, so that older adults are not seen as the "other", but "us".This prepares a generation of gerontologists to identify and reject ongoing ageism, again highlighted by the pandemic.COVID-19 has also challenged educators to offer these experiential opportunities.In this presentation we will outline how older adults from a Continuing Care Retirement Community participated virtually in a graduate course.We will discuss how their virtual involvement was structured, how their real-time COVID experiences were integrated, and share feedback from older adult participants and students on their shared learning experiences.

STUDENT PERSPECTIVE: INTERNSHIP EXPLORING INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF ADULT STUDY ABROAD Kim Redlich, Georgetown University, Washington DC, District of Columbia, United States
Older adult participation in lifelong learning programs -such as university continuing education opportunities and the Age-Friendly University global network -has grown steadily over the last few years.Many of these programs are characterized by mixed-age classrooms in which undergraduate students share space and learning, remotely during Covid, with older adult participants who pay a nominal fee.Survey findings will be presented from older students involved in two university programs in this category: Temple University's "senior scholars" program and Georgetown University's "senior auditors" program, specifically related to the concept of adult study abroad.Adult study abroad is a new offering that combines the intellectual and social benefits of stimulating coursework with the transformative power of travel, and how the merging of these pursuits can produce purpose, meaning and community, especially for older adults.It is typically residential, academic, intergenerational, and of longer duration than a typical tourist experience.

LINKING OLDER ADULTS' DAILY ACTIVITIES WITH WELL-BEING AND COGNITION: EXAMINING MODERATORS AND MEDIATORS
Chair: Christina Roecke Co-Chair: Minxia Luo Discussant: Thomas M. Hess Increasingly more studies are showing that daily activities can be beneficial to wellbeing and cognitive abilities of older adults, but discussions about through which psychological mechanisms daily activities are associated with wellbeing and cognitive health have been scarce.This symposium, including three ambulatory assessment studies and one cross-sectional study, presents emerging theoretical hypotheses and recent empirical findings on this matter.Specifically, with 5-6 days of observations from 313 older adults, Brown and colleagues show that greater daily activity diversity is related to older adults' higher overall cognitive functioning (executive functioning, memory, and crystallized intelligence).Hueluer and colleagues examine the moderating role of interaction modality on the relation of daily social interactions with wellbeing using data from 116 older adults over 21 days.Their results show that more face-to-face interactions -but not telephone or digital interactions -are associated with higher positive affect and lower loneliness.With data from 153 older adults over 15 days, Luo and colleagues show the mediating effect of positive affect in the association between momentary working memory performance and subsequent social activity engagement.Sharifian and colleagues show the mediating effects of solitary-cognitive activities in the association between depressive symptoms and global cognition, using cross-sectional data from 453 older adults, and also examine the moderating role of race.Finally, Tom Hess will serve as a discussant and provide an integrative discussion of the papers, informed by his extensive work on daily activities, motivation, and aging.

MOMENTARY WORKING MEMORY AND MOMENTARY ACTIVITIES IN HEALTHY OLDER ADULTS: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF AFFECTIVE STATES
Minxia Luo, 1 Robert Moulder, 2 and Christina Röcke, 2 1.University of Zurich,Zurich,Zurich,Switzerland,2. University of Zurich,Zurich,Zurich,Switzerland Research has shown cognitive ability in older age is associated with activity engagement, but little is known about what psychological mechanisms are linking the two constructs.This study investigates an emotional pathway, in which affective states mediate the temporal associations between momentary working memory and momentary activities in older age.We examined data from 153 healthy older adults aged 65 to 91 who completed a smartphonebased ambulatory assessment survey seven times a day over 15 days.In each assessment point, participants reported their momentary activities (e.g., social activities, mentally stimulating activities) and affective states (i.e., positive affect, negative affect) and took a working memory task.Initial results suggest that during an approximate time period of six hours (i.e., across three assessment points), working memory performance influences subsequent likelihood of social activity engagement.Moreover, positive affect mediates this temporal association.Results will be discussed in the context of cognitive aging research.

SWITCHING UP HOW YOU GET IN YOUR STEPS: DAILY ACTIVITY DIVERSITY AND COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING
Colette Brown, 1 Sangha Jeon, 1 Yee To Ng, 2 Soomi Lee, 3 Susan Charles, 1 and Karen Fingerman, 4 1.University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California, United States, 2. University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States, 3. University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, 4. The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States Active lifestyles are related to better cognitive health.More work is needed, however, to examine whether participating in a variety of daily activities (i.e., activity diversity) has unique importance beyond amount of activity.The current study examined associations between daily activity diversity and cognitive functioning among community-dwelling older adults (N = 313, ages 65-90).Participants completed a cognitive battery, then responded to ecological momentary assessments of their participation in 10 common activity types (e.g., exercise, chores, social visits, volunteering) every 3 hours for 5-6 days, and wore accelerometers to track daily step counts and duration of activity.Multiple regression models revealed that greater daily activity diversity related to higher overall cognitive functioning, executive functioning, memory, and crystallized intelligence.These associations remained significant after adjusting for step count and duration of activity.Findings suggest daily activity diversity has unique importance beyond sheer amount of activity for cognitive health in later adulthood.