Journal of Aging Studies最新文献

Hattie in Saul Bellow's “Leaving the Yellow House” and Sammler in Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet are both elderly characters. This article intends to compare the two characters from a gender perspective, to illustrate how these characters appear to experience and respond to old age and how other characters in these two fictions respond to the old age of their respective elderly characters. The comparison of these two characters in the fiction of Saul Bellow gives rise to the observation that old age is not merely a phase of negative changes but also of positive ones; ageism claims victims among both men and women whose suffering is aggravated by other kinds of injustice, such as racism and sexism.

People living with dementia commonly report negative experiences such as disempowerment, stigma, and oppression. Community gardening has demonstrated its potential as a forum for the practice of resistance against the oppressions experienced by other marginalised groups; however, this element of the experience of community gardening has yet to be explored in the context of dementia. A collaboratively-designed community gardening project took place over six weeks, involving six people with dementia. The participants selected all activities undertaken in the garden. Data were collected through semi-structured group interviews with the gardeners and researcher observations. Context-setting semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with four day centre staff members, and three key informants who had experienced working with people with dementia in the garden. The garden acted as a platform for the articulation of both verbal and embodied expressions of resistance against the disempowerment and loss of agency experienced by many people with dementia. The participatory design of the gardening sessions enabled the gardeners to assert their autonomy and independence, and defy the negative stereotypes associated with dementia, which some of the group members appeared to have internalised. Community gardening activities may offer a forum for expressions of resistance against the structures oppressing individuals with dementia. However, in order for this potential to be unlocked, such initiatives must be collaboratively designed, following an approach which recognises the strengths and enduring abilities of people living with dementia. Additionally, the empowering impact of community gardening should not be diluted by positioning the activity as a substitute for adequate statutory health and social care provision, thereby individualising responsibility for the wellbeing of people with dementia.

This study aimed to describe how older adults with complex health problems manage their everyday lives in their own homes and how they interact with given home care. In this multiple-case study, a total of 14 individual interviews were conducted with five older adults over the course of one year. Deductive and inductive content analyses were performed. Three descriptive categories were each identified in the deductive (‘home care as interpersonal continuity’, ‘home care as information continuity’ and ‘home care as management continuity’) and inductive analyses (‘Lack of social contact with carers’, ‘Desire to be heard throughout the care process’ and ‘Carers are short on time’). Quality home care services are difficult to realize if interpersonal interaction is subordinated to effective task-solving.

In oldest old age (generally considered to be from 85 years onwards), personhood is often called into question, impacting well-being as a result. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines the well-being of oldest old nursing home residents at the intersections of ageism, fraying personhood and fragile social belonging in Danish nursing home care. In Denmark personhood hinges on both independence and social belonging; or “fællesskab.” We examine how these concepts are practiced in nursing home care. Taking its starting point in the distinction between the “inside world” of the nursing home and the “real world” outside, the article examines how processes of othering occur in nursing home care, imperilling resident personhood and opportunities for social belonging. We consider how oldest old residents navigate social belonging, finding it in turn life-sustaining and vexatious. We argue that tacit ageism permeates the nursing home, to the detriment of resident well-being, despite the best intentions of an aged care system that is structured to specifically maintain personhood.

Technology plays a major role in care. Against the background of demographic ageing, the use of assistive technologies to support and relieve carers in their work is becoming more and more important. One sector that is increasingly coming into focus is home care by family caregivers. Here, the use of assistive technologies takes place under specific conditions. The article proposes a care-ethical perspective to understand these conditions. It critically discusses issues of power and participation in the negotiation of care that can be associated with the use of technology and outlines a care-ethical perspective on technocare.

How do people learn about what it is like to become frail and require assistance with activities of daily living? This significant transition in the life course is often avoided and denied by those in North America. This paper examines images from the websites of agencies providing care to older adults in their homes as one aspect of a wider social pedagogy about aging. In particular, we find that agencies in Canada and the United States aim to attract potential clients with rosy and positive images of aging, using stock images that showcase active and healthy seniors. They do not present their core services of toileting, bathing, and lifting directly, but rather represent care indirectly through the touch and attention of caregivers towards an older adult. As a result, home care agencies reproduce dominant images of successful aging, in which frailty and the need for care are taboo.

In this study, we drew on Barbara Adam's (1998) timescape perspective and applied a timescape lens to our analysis of how nine older adults who live alone, receive home care and are considered by home care professionals to be frail, experience living (in) time. Over a period of eight months, we conducted three interviews with each of the nine participants. We analysed the data using reflexive thematic analysis and drew on timescapes to further interpret our preliminary analysis. Our results show that situated everyday time, place across time, and large-scale time interact in the framing and shaping of older adults' everyday lives. Older adults' embodied experiences of being of advanced age, living alone and receiving home care influenced their timescapes. We propose that paying attention to older adults' timescapes can enable home care professionals and other supporters to consider older adults' health, well-being, vulnerabilities and strengths from a broader perspective than the ‘here and now’ and thereby enhance the provision of person-centred care.

Most people become more reliant on care and support as they age. The constitution of ageing people in the context of nursing support thus represents a material aspect in the daily life of these people and must be taken into account in the science of gerontology. However, theories of (geriatric) care have previously been predominantly human-centric. In light of the material turn, the goal of this paper is to highlight the potential to be found in using agential realism to critically examine geriatric care. It will begin by detailing previous perspectives on geriatric care and any use of material aspects to be found in it. It will then present a conceptual-methodical approach that allows for an examination of the act of caring, taking material aspects into account. The application of this approach to empirical material drawn from an example of acute care in Germany will, in conclusion, illustrate significant elements that, in light of agential realism, must also be taken into account when investigating what it means to provide good geriatric care.

Neurological degeneration is a potent signifier molding older lives, divesting them of ‘personhood’ and making them a ‘target of care’. This article delineates the depictions of Alzheimer's and its associated losses in select Indian literary narratives- Jalsobi: In the Shadow of Light (2018) and Girl in White Cotton (2019) and seeks to understand how ‘ageing into disability’ for older women has severe implications that marginalize their embodied existence, foisting a symbolic death. Through the fictional accounts, the article explores two primary threads of consideration - how the ‘selfhood’ gets eroded/reclaimed while experiencing cognitive impairment and how the shift from the patient-centric to the person-centric approach alters the relational care dynamics in the Indian context. It also attempts to situate the conception and representation of age-induced cognitive loss within the framework of critical disability studies, which understates the reductionist biomedical perspective and fosters an alternative, inclusive, and empathetic understanding of dysfunctionality.

Trans and non-binary older adults living with dementia experience forms of marginalization, pathologization, and discrimination embedded in epistemic violence that leads them to be mistreated and dismissed as knowledgeable subjects. Based on empirical findings from a Canadian study examining the experiences of trans and non-binary people living with dementia and their carers, we combat this epistemic violence by focusing on the first-hand narratives of this population and their carers. Narrative interviews were conducted with six participants (N = 6): four carers of trans and non-binary adults living with dementia and two trans (binary) people living with dementia. Through a thematic analysis, we examine the unique aspects of living with dementia as a trans or non-binary person. First, the findings show how cogniticism impacts the experience of gender identity and cisgenderism, for example through blocked surgeries, excessive gatekeeping, and not being taken seriously by practitioners. Second, the findings discuss how dementia impacts gender identity and cisgenderism, for example, by increasing the need for formal care that can in turn increase vulnerability to structural violence. Third, the findings illustrate how cisgenderism and gender identity impact the experience of dementia and cogniticism, for example by limiting care options and the ability to advocate for oneself. Fourth, the findings highlight the silo mentality among practitioners, since most of them do not work with an intersectional lens. The article concludes by offering recommendations.