ENHANCing healthier lifestyles to PROmote effective solution for health and disease prevention in AGING: assessing psychopathology, cognitive and contextual determinants

In the last decades, average life expectancy has increased worldwide (65s equal to 23% of the population). To maintain older people’s well-being, policy strategies have to focus on reducing the associated high social and economic costs. Therefore, early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and psychological and psychopathological aspects potentially associated with these conditions requires maximum attention since it is a crucial prerequisite for early and efficient treatments. The prevention and promotion of neuropsychological wellbeing in aging require a complex perspective that sees older adults as a complex biopsycho-social unit far from aging stereotypes. Providing individuals and health professionals with a broader knowledge of a biopsychosocial perspective on aging is pivotal for detecting early symptoms of pathological aging. This proposal aims to develop empirical evidence based on this paradigm by contributing to an effective and timely assessment to help plan future clinical interventions and ad-hoc patient-oriented intervention strategies. Initially, a project management program and governance will be structured to ensure that objectives and deliverables are fulfilled within the project's lifetime by promoting operative networking and communication among the subjects involved in the project. Subsequently, a comprehensive assessment of cognitive frailty and an innovative protocol for assessing domains related to psychological factors, meaning making processes, and psychological suffering will be ensured. A multi-centric observational study will be conducted on a cohort of health professionals and older adults. The data will be integrated with data from elderly patients’ and caregivers’ perceptions of the care. Moreover, at 8 months, a study will be carried out about the correlations between professionals’ domains and clinical outcomes relative to the elderly clinical population. The data obtained will be integrated with the ones related to the elderly's psychological and pathological determinants in the overall interpretative model. A further aim will be to elaborate a predictive model (a) by developing a multifaceted questionnaire capable of detecting health and contextual determinants of wellbeing in aging (b) by developing a set of guidelines for promoting a healthier lifestyle and quality of life (c). In a later stage, participants previously recruited at baseline will be re-contacted for a follow-up study. They will be provided with a summary of the study's main results and implications at the intervention level and asked to express their comments and opinions. To date, the final sample will be composed of a newer and re-tested subsample. Finally, guidelines and results will be provided to health professionals, researchers, patients, caregivers, organisations, and the general public to ensure the results' exploitation for public policy making.