¶ … Strotmeyer et al. (2010) research regarding long-term retention of older adults within a given health study. This review will examine the content and structure of this article to determine its practical applications and to reveal key learning points that may be used in future examinations regarding the same topic. Article Concept

Firstly the aim of this study was to examine the aging population as its demographical influence is described as important and impactful. The object of this study was to understand the idea of retention as it applies to these older people. The article's definition of the word retention is cumbersome and requires some deep thinking to understand the complicated words of the definition. The authors defined retention as "retaining surviving participants enrolled at baseline for subsequent assessments in a longitudinal cohort study." The word "baseline" is never adequately contextualized in this article, requiring the reader to insert some assumptions.

The main aim of this research was to examine another large study and determine how old people maintain their relationships to longitudinal studies. The authors essentially documented their investigation into redefining and understanding the idea of retention and how it factors with the ability to maintain long lasting studies.

Research Design

The Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) was introduced as the target for the...

The CHS "is a population-based, longitudinal study of coronary heart disease and stroke in adults aged 65 years and older. The main objective of the study is to identify factors related to the onset and course of coronary heart disease and stroke. CHS is designed to determine the importance of conventional cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in older adults, and to identify new risk factors in this age group, especially those that may be protective and modifiable."
The aims of this research was no to test a specific hypothesis, but rather investigate the results of the CHS. This is explicitly communicated within the introduction and is quite simple in its wording. The intervention of this research was conducted by the authors contacting the participants of the CHS every 6 months with annual assessments through 1999. Based on the researchers aims of their article, this longitudinal investigation is very appropriate and provided a useful model to measure the experiences of the elderly.

The research design was very specific and examined only one study. This must be factored into the validity of the implications of the article. The research ultimately concluded: "Our results in CHS clearly illustrate that retention over a very long follow-up period becomes increasingly challenging at advanced ages. The oldest old (>80 years) adults have the poorest retention compared to other age groups…