The dog that didn't bark: The challenge of cross-cultural qualitative research on aging
Publication date: Available online 1 March 2018 Source:Journal of Aging Studies Author(s): Stephan Lessenich, David J. Ekerdt, Anne Münch, Catheryn Koss, Angel Yee-lam Li, Helene H. Fung The paper addresses the problem of cultural proximity in qualitative cross-cultural research on aging, presenting insights into a methodology of systematic ‘estrangement’. Based on interdisciplinary research on the social time orientations of elderly people in Germany, Hong Kong, and the US, we discuss the question of how shared identities and taken-for-granted assumptions may bias the findings in comparative aging studies. Wi...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - April 4, 2018 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Social research and co-production with older people: Developing age-friendly communities
Publication date: March 2018 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 44 Author(s): Tine Buffel The aging of the population, together with the need for more inclusive and responsive policies and services, has contributed to a burgeoning interest in co-production and co-research with older people. To date, however, only a limited number of studies have addressed how the participation of older persons as research partners can be practically realized in community-based research. The purpose of this article is to provide insights into the process of co-producing a research project with older residents living in low-income ne...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - April 4, 2018 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Stigma, discrimination and agency: Diagnostic disclosure as an everyday practice shaping social citizenship
Publication date: March 2018 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 44 Author(s): Deborah O'Connor, Jim Mann, Elaine Wiersma The importance of stigma in shaping the experiences of people living with dementia and challenging their social citizenship emerges repeatedly as a powerful and negative force. In a recent participatory action research (PAR) study focused on understanding what people with dementia need to know to live well, this link between stigma, discrimination and social citizenship emerged once again. A group of people living with dementia (n=8) met monthly for 16months to discuss their experiences and adv...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - April 4, 2018 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Too many ‘false dichotomies’? Investigating the division between ageing and disability in social care services in Ireland: A study with statutory and non-statutory organisations
This study suggests that while participants often perceived the administrative and funding boundary between the fields of ageing and disability as illogical, inflexible, and not delivering person-centred care or support, the divide between the two sectors is underpinned by conceptual issues, including the lack of a concept of disability with ageing. The article argues that ways are needed of articulating what it is to experience disability in older age that are shared between older people's and disability sectors. It discusses bio-psychosocial models of disability as a means of doing so, one that avoids a return to an equa...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - April 4, 2018 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Contours of “here”: Phenomenology of space for assisted living residents approaching end of life
Publication date: Available online 12 March 2018 Source:Journal of Aging Studies Author(s): Ann E. Vandenberg, Mary M. Ball, Candace L. Kemp, Patrick J. Doyle, Meredith Fritz, Sean Halpin, Lee Hundley, Molly M. Perkins Informed by theory from environmental gerontology, this study investigates how assisted living residents who are approaching end of life navigate and experience space. Since its development, environmental gerontology has moved beyond the concept of person-environment fit to encompass aspects of place attachment and place integration, processes by which inhabited impersonal space becomes a place of ...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - April 4, 2018 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Longevity narratives: Darwinism and beyond
Publication date: Available online 15 March 2018 Source:Journal of Aging Studies Author(s): Heike Hartung The essay looks at longevity narratives as an important configuration of old age, which is closely related to evolutionary theories of ageing. In order to analyse two case studies of longevity published in the early twentieth century, the American psychologist G. Stanley Hall's book Senescence (1922) and the British dramatist Bernard Shaw's play cycle Back to Methuselah (1921), the essay draws on an outline of theories of longevity from the Enlightenment to the present. The analysis of the two case studies illustrat...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - April 4, 2018 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Pushing for miracles, pulling away from risk: An ethnographic analysis of the force dynamics at Senior Summer Camps in Sweden
The objective is to study how the camp leaders handle the dilemma of on the one hand, wanting to push senior campers into participating in challenging activities, and on the other, needing to pull them away, to reduce risk and ensure their safety, as well as how senior campers experience alternately being pushed into and pulled away from activities. What strategies are used by the camp leaders to push the campers to challenge themselves without taking unnecessary risks, and what consequences do these strategies have for the campers? The study was conducted in the form of ethnographic observations at two different camps. Du...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - April 4, 2018 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
A comparison of stepgrandchildren's perceptions of long-term and later-life stepgrandparents
Discussion and implications Later-life stepgrandchildren experience more intergenerational transitions than long-term stepgrandchildren. Appreciating and understanding the implications of different pathways to stepgrandparenthood will enhance science and practice with older stepfamily couples and intergenerational stepfamilies. (Source: Journal of Aging Studies)
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - April 4, 2018 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Suffering: The darker side of ageing
Publication date: March 2018 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 44 Author(s): Chris Gilleard Much of the literature on ageing is presaged upon a model of advocacy that seeks to combat what is seen as the negative stereotyping of old age and old people. One consequence is that ageing studies has difficulty in confronting the darker side of ageing except in so far as age associated disability and distress can be attributed to extrinsic disadvantage, such as low income, poor housing and inadequate services. The pain and suffering associated with age itself tend to be neglected as subject experiences. This paper seeks ...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - December 21, 2017 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
The art of doing good. Aging, creativity and wisdom in the Isabel Dalhousie novels
Publication date: March 2018 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 44 Author(s): Emma Domínguez-Rué, Alexander McCall-Smith Several studies have examined the interaction between the aging process and literary creativity, either to confirm the stereotype that wisdom and experience do not compensate for the inevitable decline of intellectual (and all) capacities (Lehman 1953; de Beauvoir 1972) or to highlight the empowering possibilities of embracing the knowledge and insight of a lifetime to continue developing creativity in maturity (Wyatt-Brown and Rossen 1993; Cohen-Shalev 2002; Casado-Gual, Domínguez-Rué and W...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - December 15, 2017 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Exploring the path to death through Barnes's older characters: Between irony and melancholic meditation
This article aims at analysing four of Julian Barnes's novels with protagonists either entering or in their old age in order to discern to what extent conceptions of ageing, old age and death are depicted in Barnes's fiction and develop throughout his writing career. Barnes's memoir Nothing to Be Frightened Of (2008) will also be central in the discussion, since, in it, the author reflects on conceptions of old age and death from different philosophers and authors intermingling them with his own personal experience and that of his family, specially his parents. For Barnes, death represents another part of life, even though...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - December 5, 2017 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Quality of life in the contemporary politics of healthcare: … but what is a life?
Publication date: March 2018 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 44 Author(s): Catherine R. Phillips ‘Quality of life’ (QoL) is a ubiquitous phrase in medicine. There is considerable literature on the meaning of ‘quality’ in ‘quality of life’, but little on the meaning of ‘life’. And yet, rooted in measurements of QoL, is a conceptualization of ‘a life’ used to judge ‘quality’. In this article I focus on ‘life’ within institutional healthcare, arguing that for patients who are considered elderly, their life is defined against functionality. I use an autoethnographic method to enter this c...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - November 17, 2017 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Between activity and solidarity: Comprehending retirement and extended working lives in Swedish rural areas
Publication date: March 2018 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 44 Author(s): Anna Sofia Lundgren, Evelina Liliequist, Angelika Sjöstedt Landén The expected costs of population ageing have generally led to perceived needs to postpone the age of retirement. Drawing on 20 semi-structured interviews, the aim of this paper is to describe the ways that the possibility of an extended working life is comprehended by persons over the age of 60 living in sparsely populated areas in northern Sweden. While defining themselves as active, the interviewees argued strongly in favour of the right to retire. What are often desc...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - November 16, 2017 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Is longevity a value for older adults?
Publication date: December 2017 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 43 Author(s): David J. Ekerdt, Catheryn S. Koss, Angel Li, Anne Münch, Stephan Lessenich, Helene H. Fung Longevity is an aspiration at the population level, a goal of public health policy and research. In the later decades of life, longevity goals also deserve scrutiny at the personal level to understand whether people welcome longer lives. Contradictory preferences could be expected, both the embrace of longevity and hesitation. The desire for extended life was examined using qualitative interviews in parallel designs among 90 persons aged 62...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - November 6, 2017 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Enabling at-homeness for residents living in a nursing home: Reflected experience of nursing home staff
Publication date: December 2017 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 43 Author(s): Lotta Saarnio, Anne-Marie Boström, Ragnhild Hedman, Petter Gustavsson, Joakim Öhlén Older people are often living the last period of their lives in institutions such as nursing homes. Knowledge of this period, specifically related to at-homeness which can be described as wellbeing in spite of illness and has been regarded as one of the goals in palliative care, has been very little researched in the context of nursing homes and the experience of nursing home staff. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of nursing ...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - October 28, 2017 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
