Zeitschrift Fur Gerontologie Und Geriatrie最新文献

Background: Disease prevention and health promotion in and for old age have become increasingly more important. Nevertheless, more (national) research and implementation in practice is needed, as the international comparison shows.

Objective: To develop guiding principles for research and practice on prevention and health promotion in and for old age.

Material and methods: As part of an iterative process, members of the German Society of Gerontology and Geriatrics came together in workshops and symposia to formulate key guiding principles and fields of action for prevention and health promotion.

Results: The following were worked out: 1) prevention and health promotion are useful and possible up to oldest age, 2) prevention and health promotion for advanced age should start early, 3) prevention and health promotion must take into account the diversity and heterogeneity of the life situations of old people, 4) prevention and health promotion promote and demand self-determination and participation, 5) prevention of multiple illnesses must be given greater attention, 6) prevention of the need for long-term care and prevention in long-term care must be treated equally, 7) prevention and health promotion must be thought of in terms of life worlds and across sectors, paying particular attention to aspects of social inequality and a focus on resources, 8) prevention and health promotion and the related research must be interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary and be applied at different levels, from molecular to societal.

Discussion: The guiding principles outline the focal points of future-oriented ageing, health and healthcare research and open up fields of action but also show the limits of this approach for political decision-makers, researchers and practitioners.

Background: The in-home care consultation visits according to § 37.3 of the Social Security Statute Book XI have been carried out inconsistently so far and with a lack of structured care documentation. In the INGE-integrate4care project, an app was developed to support the quality assurance of visits.

Method: Based on a user-centered design approach, 10 semistructured expert interviews were conducted and analyzed using qualitative content analysis according to Mayring. In group-based expert walkthroughs with 7 participants, the design, contents and functions of the app were discussed, requirements were collected in feedback lists and digitally implemented by developers.

Results: Interviewees reported that visits are heterogeneous, that there are individual approaches and that this should be reflected in the design of the app. Important topics for the app were, e.g. contents of the NBA and the burden on caregivers. Functions such as the recommendation of measures on the basis of documented information are desirable. On the other hand, too stringent guidelines of the app would be an obstacle, as these would limit the conversational character of the visit. The NBA and BIZA‑D were chosen by the experts in the project as suitable basic assessments and adapted to the visits. Flexible access to items, visualization of care status per category, and the ability to select and track measures were specified to support workflow.

Discussion: The user-centered design approach enabled the development of an app that is characterized by both flexibility and structure. The tool will be further optimized with the help of usability evaluations and focus groups.

Background: Individual-centered approaches have for a long time defined the gerontological involvement with technology. Despite an approach that expands in terms of space (e.g., neighborhood approaches) or social networks (e.g., caring communities), these approaches are characterized by centering on people as working alone. Material gerontological approaches attempt to theoretically and empirically address this entanglement of humans and technology by decentralizing the human and conceptualizing agency as being distributed among human and nonhuman agents.

Objective: Drawing on ongoing debates in material gerontology a concept of age assemblages is developed with which age(ing) can be understood as a process distributed between older people, objects, technologies and spaces. At the same time this involves how such theoretical concepts can be applied in the practice of sociotechnical innovations in order to promote successful ageing.

Material and methods: Based on various empirical research studies, the article exemplifies a material gerontological perspective.

Results and discussion: It is shown how an expansion of gerontology towards more than human worlds of age(ing) can be conceived. The focus is on (1) a decentralization of age(ing) towards "age assemblages", (2) a broadening of the individual human to a distributed more than human agency and, as a result, (3) a shift in the boundaries of research phenomena in gerontology. The article closes with reflections on what the developed concept of age assemblages means for gerontological research and practice.

Background: Participation has been a key issue in gerontology, geriatric care policy and practice for several years now. The relationship between participation and space plays a role in the discussion about community orientation. So far, little attention has been paid to the relationship between participation and space within residential care facilities for older people.

Material and methods: Qualitative data from two studies on residential care facilities for older people were secondarily analyzed by a "supra-analysis" and using qualitative content analysis with respect to participation in relation to space and space in relation to participation.

Results: Almost all levels of the participation ladder considered can be found with respect to the co-design of spaces, although residents with dementia are granted fewer opportunities for participation. In addition, spaces can create conditions for participation through their arrangement. Reciprocal relationships are condensed in processes of space appropriation, design and planning. If there is no access to these processes, self-determined everyday life is limited.

Conclusion: The results contribute to a spatially related development of participation concepts because they show in which spatial contexts participation is produced in institutional settings through the interaction of different actors and how it is distributed spatially. In order to promote participation in institutions, it is important to reflect on existing possibilities for spatial appropriation, design and planning against the background of institutional framework conditions.

The living situation of people in nursing homes, with a specific vulnerability to care-related impoverishment, is underresearched. This article deals with experiences of uncertainty, poverty and a precarious life situation of care home residents in later life. The data basis is supplied by an ethnographic study of ageing and living with chronic health conditions. A range of precarious living situations are outlined on the basis of real cases. Insights gleaned include: people with diverse sociobiographical backgrounds can be affected by insecurity, poverty and precarious life situations as a result of becoming dependent on help and the transition to care homes. Not knowing whether available funds will suffice to cover rising costs until the end of life is a common form of uncertainty about the future. The threat of poverty or becoming dependent on state benefits can exacerbate experiences of loss associated with institutional care, losing autonomy, opportunities for participation, and options for shaping one's life and can further destabilize the overall condition. This anguish remains largely invisible; structural problems are individualized.

Background: Previous research on retirement adjustment has been dominated by quantitative studies on the development of different indicators for adjustment success. In contrast, there is a lack of qualitative studies examining the subjective experiences of retirees in their adjustment process to the new life phase.

Objective: The article deals with the subjective adjustment experiences of persons whose regular retirement was about 1 year ago. It focuses on experienced habituation requirements and subjectively relevant factors of life satisfaction.

Material and methods: The findings are based on qualitative interview data from a more comprehensive mixed methods study conducted between 2019 and 2022 in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. In the course of the study, 25 semi-structured interviews were carried out and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: Entering the new life phase was predominately experienced positively, which was mainly associated with a gain in freedom and opportunities for regeneration; however, the time after retirement also entailed habituation requirements in different areas of life. Life satisfaction increased compared to the initial survey before retirement and was associated with various beneficial and critical factors, ranging from personal characteristics to social developments.

Conclusion: Retirement itself is not necessarily a critical experience but can be accompanied by other critical events. A satisfactory life 1 year after retirement is linked to multiple factors. Among these, resources play an essential role.