Health behaviors of older persons with and without heart disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the major cause of morbidity, mortality, and disability in older adults. The link between unhealthy behaviors and CVD has been well established with physical inactivity and smoking being two major risk factors for CVD. Identifying factors related to exercise and smoking in the growing population of older adults is important since these are modifiable risk factors which when improved can decrease the morbidity, mortality, and disability due to CVD in older adults.;Minimal research has investigated factors related to exercise and smoking in older adults. The purposes of this longitudinal study were to examine factors related to exercise and not smoking in older adults with specific attention aimed at the (1) trajectory of exercise and smoking in older adults with and without CVD, (2) influence of a new or remote diagnosis of CVD on exercise and smoking behavior in older adults, and (3) influence of a spouse as well as spousal health and health behaviors on the exercise and smoking behavior of the other spouse.;The study revealed that exercise and smoking behavior of older persons with CVD was significantly less than persons without CVD, and somewhat counter- intuitively, older persons with a new diagnosis of CVD were less likely to adopt exercise or to stop smoking. However, if an older adult is exercising and is newly diagnosed with CVD they are less likely to stop exercising. The effect of presence of a spouse on the health behaviors of the other spouse was associated with both favorable and unfavorable health behaviors, but poor spousal health and spousal health behaviors were associated with unfavorable health behaviors in the other spouse. The results of this study suggest that the social support provided by spouses may favorably modify health behaviors. Because of this, both spouses may benefit from CVD prevention and maintenance programs as well as participation in a cardiac rehabilitation program. Development of policy and practice issues aimed at providing older adults with CVD and their spouse greater access to CVD prevention and maintenance programs is needed.