Advance Care Planning in Norwegian nursing homes —Who is it for?
Publication date: August 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 38 Author(s): Lisbeth Thoresen, Rolf Ahlzén, Kari Nyheim Solbrække Advance care planning (ACP) is an international concept for improving patient autonomy and communication in the context of anticipated deterioration and end-of-life care. In a preparatory conversation, health care professionals facilitate one or more conversations where nursing home residents are invited to reflect on, and articulate wishes and preferences concerning future medical treatment and end-of-life care. Our aim with this study was to increase knowledge of existing AC...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - July 20, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Care, coping and identity: Older men's experiences of spousal care-giving
Publication date: August 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 38 Author(s): Christine Milligan, Hazel Morbey In this paper, we draw on narrative correspondence from older male spousal caregivers and interviews with care providers from the voluntary and statutory sectors to explore how older male carers in the UK cope with and experience care-giving, the forms of support they draw upon, and how this impacts on their sense of self and identity as older men. We also consider how (or if) gender plays a part in shaping the forms of formal care support extended to male carers. We conclude, that how older men cons...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - July 13, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Postcolonial theory and old age: An explorative essay
Publication date: Available online 9 July 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies Author(s): Rüdiger Kunow In this paper, I will present a reading of senior life through the lens of postcolonial theory. Even while this body of theory is as varied as the life experience summarized under the label “old age”, such a project promises mutually fruitful results. Postcolonialism's preoccupation with positional difference, subalternity and the abiding influence of the hegemon over what it discards as other can be helpful in overcoming the often merely chronological or individualized understanding of the last stages of the ...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - July 9, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
The othering of old age: Insights from Postcolonial Studies
Publication date: Available online 3 July 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies Author(s): Silke van Dyk When it comes to old age, we are witnessing almost revolutionary changes at the present time. After decades of ignorance and lack of public interest, old age has fundamentally been re-negotiated. A diverse range of authors have diagnosed the growing bifurcation of old age into a rather independent and capable Third Age and a deep old Fourth Age that is characterized by sickness, frailty and dependency. Against this backdrop, many gerontologists claim that the so-called young-old are praised and valued for their (on...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - July 3, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Exploring the impact of austerity-driven policy reforms on the quality of the long-term care provision for older people in Belgium and the Netherlands
Publication date: August 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 38 Author(s): David Janssen, Wesley Jongen, Peter Schröder-Bäck In this case study, European quality benchmarks were used to explore the contemporary quality of the long-term care provision for older people in the Belgian region of Flanders and the Netherlands following recent policy reforms. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with various experts on the long-term care provision. The results show that in the wake of the economic crisis and the reforms that followed, certain vulnerable groups of older people in Belgium and t...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - July 1, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Alienation and alterity: Age in the existentialist discourse on others
Publication date: Available online 30 June 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies Author(s): Harm-Peer Zimmermann Aging Studies and Postcolonial Studies belong together in a rather fundamental way, given that they share profound theoretical roots and far-reaching critical perspectives. These derive not only from the more recent poststructuralist discourse on others but also, further back, from the existentialist discourse on others — particularly in issues relating to “The Look” as elaborated by Jean-Paul Sartre in his major philosophical treatise Being and Nothingness and in his reflections on racism, colonialis...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - June 30, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Age mimicry. A perspective on the young-old
Publication date: Available online 30 June 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies Author(s): Thomas Küpper This essay proposes drawing on Homi K. Bhabha's concept of colonial mimicry to theorize the young-old's imitation of midlife. Bhabha states: “colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite”. On an abstract level, similarities can be found in what is expected of the young-old: the young-old are to orient themselves towards middle-age norms, yet only to a certain degree and only when respecting the allegedly natural differen...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - June 30, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Postcolonial perspectives in Aging Studies: Introduction
Publication date: Available online 28 June 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies Author(s): Silke van Dyk, Thomas Küpper (Source: Journal of Aging Studies)
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - June 27, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Late style as exile: De/colonising the life course
Publication date: Available online 24 June 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies Author(s): Heike Hartung In the collection of essays On Late Style, Edward Said reflects on the new idiom achieved by great artists in their work near the end of their lives as “late style.” Drawing on Adorno's essay on Beethoven's late style, Said also focuses on the aesthetic aspects of lateness. Defining the late works of artists as “a form of exile,” however, Said moves beyond Adorno's aesthetic conception of late style. Highlighting the artist's abandonment of communication with the established social order, who achieves a co...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - June 23, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Age and life course location as interpretive resources for decisions regarding disclosure of HIV to parents and children: Findings from the HIV and later life study
Publication date: August 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 38 Author(s): Dana Rosenfeld, Damien Ridge, Jose Catalan, Valerie Delpech Studies of disclosure amongst older people living with HIV (PLWH) are uninformed by critical social-gerontological approaches that can help us to appreciate how older PLWH see and treat age as relevant to disclosure of their HIV status. These approaches include an ethnomethodologically-informed social constructionism that explores how ‘the’ life course (a cultural framework depicting individuals' movement through predictable developmental stages from birth to death)...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - June 22, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Interpretations of person-centered dementia care: Same rhetoric, different practices? A comparative study of nursing homes in England and Sweden
Publication date: August 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 38 Author(s): Anneli Stranz, Renita Sörensdotter Using ethnographic data collected from nursing homes in England and Sweden, this article analyzes how a person-centered approach to dementia care has been interpreted in two different contexts. Based on typical elements of person-centered care identified in previous research, the analysis examines environmental changes and the way care is performed. A discourse of person-centered care is articulated at both nursing homes, which aim to create a good environment and care practice for people with dem...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - May 19, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
How do older Australian farming couples construct generativity across the life course?: A narrative exploration
Publication date: August 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 38 Author(s): Heather Downey, Guinever Threlkeld, Jeni Warburton Australian farming, predominantly based on a family farming model, reflects a distinct culture and identity within Australia. Generativity can be identified within the longstanding practice of patrilineal generational farm succession. However, the changing social, economic and environmental context facing farmers today, is now threatening the sustainability and viability of the family farming model. The outcome in Australia, as elsewhere, has been a significant decline in the numb...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - May 12, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Perceived resident–facility fit and sense of control in assisted living
Publication date: August 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 38 Author(s): Jari Pirhonen, Ilkka Pietilä The concept of resident–facility fit has largely been used to illustrate whether a residential care facility and a resident are together able to meet requirements set by only the hampering functional abilities of the latter. The purpose of this paper is to study how assisted living residents perceive resident–facility fit. The data were gathered ethnographically from both observations and resident interviews in a sheltered home in Finland during 2013–2014. Perceived resident–facility fit is base...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - May 12, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
Baking together—the coordination of actions in activities involving people with dementia
This study explores interaction and collaboration between people with dementia and their spouses in relation to the performance of household chores with the focus on instruction as an interactional context to engage the person with dementia in collaboration to accomplish joint activities. Dementia is generally associated with pathological changes in people's cognitive functions such as diminishing memory functions, communicative abilities and also diminishing abilities to take initiative as well as to plan and execute tasks. Using video recordings of everyday naturally occurring activities, we analyze the sequential organi...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - May 4, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
An alternative discourse of productive aging: A self-restrained approach in older Chinese people in Hong Kong
Publication date: August 2016 Source:Journal of Aging Studies, Volume 38 Author(s): Minxia Luo, Ernest Wing-tak Chui While Western discourses regarding productive aging emphasize individuals' contributions to economic productivity, the Confucian cultural heritage of the Chinese community may provide an alternative perspective. This qualitative study explores interpretations of what constitutes productive aging, based on a series of in-depth interviews with older Chinese people in Hong Kong. It shows that some of these individuals adopted a passive and indirect interpretation of productive aging, distinct from that ...
Source: Journal of Aging Studies - May 4, 2016 Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research
