Longitudinal Study of Aging Danish Twins, 1995 : Archival Version

• Main Authors: Christensen, Kaare, Vaupel, James W.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: ICPSR - Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research 2009
• Subjects: Christensen; Faroe Islands; Greenland
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3886/icpsr21041; http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACDA/studies/21041

The focus of the "Longitudinal Study of Aging Danish Twins (LSADT)" has been on elucidating the causes of variation in survival, health, diseases, loss of abilities, and cognitive functions among the elderly and oldest-old. The LSADT was conducted every two years between 1995 and 2005 and consists of six waves. The study comprises interviews of elderly Danish twins aged 75 years and older (later 70 years and older). At each interview wave, the interview assessment has been based on the interview used in the previous waves, which covers health, physical functioning, cognitive functioning, depression symptomatology, social factors, lifestyle characteristics, and quality of life. The self-report interview assessments have been supplemented with objective indicators of physical strength and agility, behavioral speed, and pulmonary peak-flow. Biological material was also collected from the participants for future DNA analysis. : No weights have been used : ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Performed consistency checks.; Standardized missing values.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.. : Response Rates: Physical functioning: The self-reported assessment of physical functioning is based on an instrument that was developed and previously validated in Denmark (Avlund et al, 1995). It has been used essentially unchanged throughout all waves of LSADT. Cognitive functioning: The cognitive battery includes the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE, Folstein et al, 1995) and five brief cognitive tests selected to be sensitive to age-related changes (McGue and Christensen, 2002). Depression symptomatology: The assessment is based on an adaptation of the depression section of the Cambridge Mental Disorders of the Elderly Examination (CAMDEX, Roth et al, 1986; Johnson et al, 2002). Social activity: The Social Activity scale was not administered in LSADT until 1997. : Datasets: DS1: Dataset : computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI), face-to-face interview : All twins aged 75 years and older born in Denmark and still residing in Denmark, not including the Faroe Islands and Greenland. : The LSADT used a cohort sequential design. The sampling for all waves of LSADT is described in M. McGue and K. Christensen. "Social Activity and Healthy Aging: A Study of Aging Danish Twins." Twin Research and Human Genetics 10,2 (2007), 255-266.