Bonn gerontological longitudinal study
The Bonn Gerontological Longitudinal Study (BOLSA) is one of the pioneering scientific studies in German-speaking gerontology . It provided descriptions of the changes in normal aging. The results received national and international attention. The head of the study was Hans Thomae , one of the assistants to his wife Ursula Lehr .
The study at a glance
The study was carried out from 1965 to 1981. The same 220 men and women born between 1890 and 1895 and 1900 to 1905 were examined at seven measurement times using various psychological, medical and sociological methods. Some of the subjects died during the study period. The investigation included unstructured interviews that were taped. The research results include intellectual development, psychomotor skills , personality development, changes in social relationships and the forms of dealing with everyday stresses . The central result was the confirmation of Thoma's hypothesis that the structure and course of aging is less the result of aging norms than is shaped by a multitude of age forms. Aging styles were identified; In particular, correlations between healthy aging and sociological, psychological and medical aspects could be established. The study substantiated the requirement for a differential gerontology on a scientific basis .
Partial studies
The raw material of the study is archived in the historical data center of the University of Halle (Saale).
The work forms of mental aging contains a compilation of individual scientific contributions :
- Hans Thomae : Gerontological longitudinal studies: goals - possibilities - limits
- Hans Thomae, Ursula Lehr : Sample and procedure of the investigation in the Bonn Gerontological Longitudinal Study (BOLSA)
- Heinz Grombach: Constancy and changeability of personality as a function of methodological foundations
- Ursula Lehr: Personality Development in Old Age - Differential Aspects
- Reinhard Schmitz-Scherzer : Constancy and change in mental performance
- Georg Rudinger : Intelligence development under different social conditions
- Georg Rudinger: On the stability of intelligence in old age
- Franz Josef Mathey: Sensorimotor Skills - Age Dependence of Sensorimotor Performance
- Ursula Lehr, Elisabeth Minnemann: Change in the quantity and quality of social contacts from the 7th to 9th decade of life
- Hans Thomae: Everyday stress in old age and attempts to cope with it
- Alois Angleitner: Constancy and variability of rigidity in old age using the example of the Riegel questionnaire
- Hermann-Josef Fisseni: Experienced finality of one's own existence in the context of biographical correlates
- Ursula Lehr: Subjective and objective state of health in the light of longitudinal studies
- Insa Fooken: Biographical factors of the age experience of single and long-time widowed women
- Hans Thomae: Aging forms - ways to their methodical and conceptual recording
- Wolfgang F. Schneider: The psychological and social situation of the very old
- Ursula Lehr, Reinhard Schmitz-Scherzer and Ernst Joseph Zimmermann: Comparisons of survivors and deceased in the Bonn gerontological longitudinal study
- Reinhard Schmitz-Scherzer: On the construct of the "Terminal Decline"
- Franz-Josef Kessle, Marieluise Reimer: Internal findings on the question of longevity
- Hans Thomae: Patterns of Psychological Aging - Findings of the Bonn Longitudinal Study of Aging
reception
The tape recordings were re-evaluated under a different question by the historian Christina von Hodenberg , born in 1965, and were used in the hypothesis of her study, published in 2018, The Other Sixty-Eight. Social history of a revolt .
Web links
font
- Ursula Lehr / Hans Thomae (Hrsg.): Forms of mental aging. Results of the Bonn Gerontological Longitudinal Study (BOLSA). Stuttgart: Enke, 1987 ISBN 3-432-96451-X