Broadly speaking, we work to conceptualize the relationships between mood, cognition, and medical and functional aspects of health in ways that are informative to the evolving needs of mental health and medical professionals delivering integrated care to older adults. The American population is rapidly aging, with enormous growth of the population over age 65. Improving our understanding of adverse developmental and clinical trajectories has become a significant public health concern. In addition, depression throughout the lifespan is a major public health burden. Indeed, depression is broadly associated with adverse health outcomes including frailty, dementia, loss of independence, and increased mortality.
Over the past few years, we have developed an ongoing collaboration with the UCF Substance Use Research Group (SURG). Our interest in substance use among older adults, which began with a series of studies on moderate alcohol use, has transitioned to focus on medical cannabis use. Emerging data clearly suggests therapeutic benefit for some clinical concerns, such as pain management, and offsets use of other therapies with adverse outcomes, including opioids. By contrast, use of medical cannabis for mental health concerns is not consistently supported by empirical evidence. Our research seeks to better understand how individual motives for use, safety behaviors, and idiopathic differences (cognition, social support, coping skills, etc) impact broad patterns of use and corresponding distress and impairment over time.
If you are interested in using the Paulson-Lichtenberg Frailty Index, please see:
Paulson-Lichtenberg Frailty Index
The following are a list of our publications:
Paulson, D., Dvorak, R. D., Dunn, M. E., Maynard, M., Burr, E. K., Allen, Q., Churchill, E., & McClure, N. V. (Under Review). Medical motives and psychiatric motives are differentially associated with cannabis protective behavioral strategies and adverse cannabis outcomes among adults aged 55 and older
Maynard, M., Burr, E., Allen, Q., Dvorak, R. D., Paulson, D. (2025). Loss of Control Eating Mediates the Relationship Between Cannabis-Related Problems and Eating Pathology. Psychological Reports, 128(4), 2244-2256. 10.1177/00332941231161999.
Maynard, M., Dvorak, R. D., Paulson, D., Burr, E. K., Allen, Q., Lighthall, N. R., Lysandrou, A.(2025). Daily impact of medical cannabis on anxiety and sleep quality in older adults. Psychiatry, 1-15.
Dvorak, R. D., Paulson, D., Dunn, M. E., Burr, E. K., Peterson, R., Maynard, M., De Leon, A. N., Klaver, J., Leary, A. V., Hayden, E. R., Allen, Q., & Toth, E. (2024). Effects of medical cannabis use on physical and psychiatric symptoms across the day among older adults. Psychiatry Research, 339, 116055.
Maynard, M., Paulson, D., Dunn, M., and Dvorak, R. D. (2023). Relationship Between Cannabis Use and Immediate, Delayed, and Working Memory Performance Among Older Adults. Cannabis, 6(2). 10.26828/cannabis/2023/000153
Wan, X., Lighthall, N. R., Paulson, D. (2022). Subjective markers of successful aging and change in Internet use among older adults: The distinctive role of subjective health. Aging & Mental Health, 127, 107064.
Steigerwald, V., Rozek, D. C., Paulson, D. (2022). Depressive symptoms in older adults with
and without a history of incarceration: A matched pairs comparison. Aging & Mental Health, 26 (11), 2179-2185.
Falcao, D., Paulson, D. (2022). Quality of relationship between adult children caregivers and parents with dementia. Interpersona, 16, (2), 136-157.
Lichtenberg, P. A., Paulson, D., Han, D. S. (2020). Examining health and wealth correlates of
perceived financial vulnerability: A normative study. Innovation in Aging. 4, 4.
Barman, M. S., Paulson, D. (2022). Piloting a dementia caregiver intervention in a primary care setting. The Clinical Gerontologist, 45, (4), 998-1009.
Scott, R. G., *Weiner, C., Paulson, D. (2021). Functional limitation in later- life: The impact of sips, socialization, and sadness. Age and Ageing, 25 (11), 2061-2067.
Brush, D. M., Paulson, D., Herrera, M. J., James, N. T., Scheurich, J. A., Stevenson, B. L., Dvorak, R. (2020). Sleep disturbance and depressive symptoms in later-life: Cross-sectional examination of cognitive mechanisms. Neurology, Psychiatry, and Brain Research, 37, 6-14.
Wharton, T., Paulson, D. (2020). Major neurocognitive disorders and violence. In B. Carpiliello et al (eds.) Violence and Mental Disorders, Comprehensive Approach to Psychiatry, (135-152). Springer Nature Switzerland. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-33188-7_8
*Scott, R., *Wiener, C., Paulson D. (2020). The benefit of moderate alcohol use on mood and
functional ability in later-life: Due to beers or frequent cheers? The Gerontologist, 60(1). 80-88
Paulson, D., *James, N., *Brush, N. (2019). Quality of life enhancement research program:
Lessons learned. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 62(4), 392-398.
Wharton, T., Paulson, D., Burcher, K., & Lesch, H. (2018) Delirium and anti-psychotic medications at hospital intake: Screening to decrease likelihood of aggression in inpatient settings among unknown patients with dementia. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Disorders.
Falcao, D., Paulson, D., Herrera, M., Irurita, C. (2018). Adaptation and validation of a
Portuguese measure of familism in a sample of Alzheimer’s disease caregivers. Paidéia, 29(6).
Herring, D., Paulson, D. (2018). Moderate alcohol use and apolipoprotein E-4 (ApoE-4): Independent effects on cognitive outcomes in later life. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 40(4), 326-337.
Shah, M., Paulson, D., Nguyen, V. (2018). Alcohol use and frailty risk among older adults over 12 years: The Health and Retirement Study. Clinical Gerontologist, 41(4), 315-325.
Paulson, D., Shah, M., Herring, D., Scott, R., Herrera, M., Brush, D., Bassett. R. (2018). The relationship between moderate alcohol consumption, depressive symptomatology and C-reactive protein: The Health and Retirement Study. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 33 (2), 316-324.
Scott, R. G., Paulson, D. (2018). Cerebrovascular burden and depressive symptomatology
interrelate over 18 years: Support for vascular depression theory. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 33 (1), 66-74.
Wiener, C. H., Cassisi, J. E., Paulson, D., Husson, O. Gupta, R. A. (2017). Information support,
illness perceptions, and distress in survivors of differentiated thyroid cancer. Journal of Health Psychology, 24(9), 1201-1209.
Scott, R. G., Paulson, D. (2017). Independent effects of ApoE and cerebrovascular burden on later- life depression: The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 78 (7), 891-896.
Paulson, D. *Bassett, R., *Kitsmiller, E., *Luther, K., *Conner, N. (2017). When employment and
caregiving collide: Predictors of labor force participation in prospective and current caregivers. Clinical Gerontologist, 40(5), 401-412.
Wharton, T., Paulson, D., Macri, L., Hanauer, D. (2016). Delirium and mental health history as
predictors of aggression in individuals with dementia in inpatient settings. Aging & Mental Health. 22(1), 121-128.
Paulson, D., *Shah, M., Matero, L. Eshelman, A., Abouljoud, D. (2016). Cognition predicts quality of life among patients with end-stage liver disease. Psychosomatics, 57(5), 514-521.