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The Sydney Older Persons Study

This study was designed to understand more about what makes people age successfully. Professor Broe and his colleagues have been studying the same group of people for over 10 years now, regularly testing their mental and physical function. When participants were originally recruited they were aged 75 years and older. Now the average age of these remarkable people is 89 years old, with 15 participants over 100 years old. The invaluable information we have gained from studying this group of people has been published in a number of journal articles and book chapters (see below).

SOPS research started over 10 years ago. Professor Broe and colleagues recruited over 500 people living in the community who were over the age of 75

A clinically neglected but common syndrome of ageing is gait slowing, which we have shown predicts functional decline, dementia and falls in older people. We hope to identify the pathological basis of gait slowing using both new functional imaging techniques and the cellular analysis of the brain donated after death. These studies are essential to determine the functional and anatomical basis of the syndrome of gait slowing in ageing. Only by establishing the mechanisms underlying the demonstrated relationship between gait slowing and both falls and dementia in older people can effective treatments and prevention strategies be developed. How can I help this research? Participate in our brain donor program (call 02 9036 7117). Key researchers Tony Broe, Olivier Piguet, Glenda Halliday Collaborators Helen Creasey, Dave Grayson, Louise Waite, Jillian Kril, Hayley Bennet

This study is one of the largest analysing normal ageing. To assess how the brain ages, some of the participants have undergone Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the brains, as shown in the figure. By replicating these studies a number of times we have been able to determine differences between normal ageing and brain diseases associated with age.

Key publications

Bennett HP, Piguet O, Grayson DA, Creasey H, Waite LM, Broe GA, Halliday GM (2003). A six-year study of cognition and spatial function in the demented and non-demented elderly: the Sydney Older Persons Study. Dementia and Cognitive Geriatric Disorders; 16:181-186.

Shepherd CE, Piguet O, Broe GA, Creasey H, Waite LM, Brooks WS, Kril JJ (2004) Histocompatibility antigens, aspirin use and cognitive performance in non-demented elderly subjects, Journal of Neuroimmunology 148:178-182

Important Notice

Data from the Sydney Older Persons Study 1992-2003 has been lodged with the Australian Social Science Data Archive (ASSDA) hosted at the Australian National University for the purpose of supporting researchers in the field of ageing-related studies.

You may contact the ASSDA directly for access to the data.

The link is: http://assda.anu.edu.au