EVERYDAY ACTIVITY PATTERNS AND SENSORY FUNCTIONING IN OLD-AGE

In the present study the authors investigated the relationship between visual and auditory acuity and everyday activity functioning. Partici pants were 516 older adults (70-103 years; equal numbers of men and wo men) who were members of the age-stratified Berlin Aging Study. Two ca tegories of everyday activity functioning, perceived competence with b asic activities of daily living (BaCo; basic competence) and amount of participation in discretionary social and leisure tasks (ExCo, expand ed competence), were examined. The results revealed that sensory acuit y. particularly vision, was a significant predictor of both BaCo and E xCo (rs ranging from .32 to .47). Indeed, hearing and vision could exp lain most of the age-related variance in everyday activities. At the s ame time, in the context of a broader model, evidence for the differen tial prediction of BaCo and ExCo was found, although there was also ev idence for strong general age-related predictive variance that was com mon to both measures. Discussion focuses on the role of sensory acuity constructs as mediators of age-related variance in psychological and behavioral outcomes and the potential causal implications of this medi ation.