Poster

In aging, the ability to be spatially and socially engaged within ones world is important for quality of life. Life space mobility (LSM), or the degree to which people move through their environment, can decrease with age. The New Theoretical Framework for Mobility (Webber, Porter, & Menec, 2010) proposes that financial, psychosocial, environmental, physical, and cognitive factors determine the extent of ones LSM. The purpose of this study was to examine these factors as proposed in the model and their contribution to LSM in a sample of older adults. In this study, 142 community-dwelling, cognitively intact adults aged 62 to 96 were asked about the quality and quantity of traveling in their environment using the Life Space Questionnaire (LSQ). A multiple regression model was constructed using financial, psychosocial (Lubben Social Network Scale), environmental (the type of residence), physical (a health score including number of medications used, vision using the snellen eye test, and assistive devices used), and cognitive measures (Trail Making B test) to examine their effect on LSM. The final model indicated cognitive abilities (p=.0486), physical health (p=.001), psychosocial status (p=.0014), and environment (p=.0041) were significant predictors for LSM. Healthier individuals with better cognitive abilities, who have larger social networks and live in their own homes versus senior residential complexes, were predicted to have higher LSM. A better understanding of the contribution of these factors to LSM can lead to interventions to decrease mobility burden and prevent limitation of life space in older adults