Older People, Sense of Coherence and Community

Population ageing is a global trend and even though years added to life often are lived in good health; it will have an impact on healthcare, housing and facilities, and social security costs. Healthy ageing in place, especially in one’s own home and community, increasingly receives attention from health professionals, researchers, and policymakers. In this chapter, we first discuss the meaning of the concept of healthy ageing, and how Sense of Coherence contributes to this process. Next, we discuss the characteristics of the community in which older people live their lives and how the community can provide resources (GRR and SRR) to strengthen Sense of Coherence and hence perceived well-being and quality of life

Envejecer en casa con teleasistencia en España. Un análisis del discurso

Caring for the elderly is turning to forms of community care and home care. Telecare is one of those emergent modalities of caring. This article will explore the meanings that older people give to the experience of staying at home in later life by using telecare. Discourse analysis is used to examine a set of focus groups and interviews with telecare users from different cities of Catalonia (Spain). The outcomes include three interpretative repertoires that we called: "Aging at home", "normal aging" and "unsafe aging". For each repertoire we examine how the permanence of older people in their homes is accounted, and which role telecare plays in such experience.El cuidado de las personas mayores está dando un giro hacia modalidades de atención comunitaria y domiciliaria. La teleasistencia es una de dichas modalidades. Este artículo se propone explorar los significados que las personas mayores asocian a la experiencia de permanecer en el hogar a edades avanzadas con ayuda de la teleasistencia. Se utiliza el análisis del discurso para examinar un conjunto de grupos de discusión con y de entrevistas a usuarios de teleasistencia de diferentes ciudades de Cataluña (España). Como resultado se presentan tres repertorios interpretativos denominados: "envejecimiento en casa", "envejecimiento normal" y "envejecimiento inseguro". Para cada uno se examina la forma como describen la permanencia de las personas mayores en sus hogares, así como el papel que la teleasistencia juega en dicha experiencia

Home: The place the older adult can not imagine living without

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Rapidly aging populations with an increased desire to remain at home and changes in health policy that promote the transfer of health care from formal places, as hospitals and institutions, to the more informal setting of one's home support the need for further research that is designed specifically to understand the experience of home among older adults. Yet, little is known among health care providers about the older adult's experience of home. The aim of this study was to understand the experience of home as experienced by older adults living in a rural community in Sweden.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Hermeneutical interpretation, as developed by von Post and Eriksson and based on Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, was used to interpret interviews with six older adults. The interpretation included a self examination of the researcher's experiences and prejudices and proceeded through several readings which integrated the text with the reader, allowed new questions to emerge, fused the horizons, summarized main and sub-themes and allowed a new understanding to emerge.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two main and six sub-themes emerged. Home was experienced as the place the older adult could not imagine living without but also as the place one might be forced to leave. The older adult's thoughts vacillated between the well known present and all its comforts and the unknown future with all its questions and fears, including the underlying threat of loosing one's home.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Home has become so integral to life itself and such an intimate part of the older adult's being that when older adults lose their home, they also loose the place closest to their heart, the place where they are at home and can maintain their identity, integrity and way of living. Additional effort needs to be made to understand the older adult's experience of home within home health care in order to minimize intrusion and maximize care. There is a need to more fully explore the older adult's experience with health care providers in the home and its impact on the older adult's sense of "being at home" and their health and overall well-being.</p

Features of home and neighbourhood and the liveability of older South Africans

While older people live in developing countries, little is known about the relative importance of features of their communities in influencing their liveability. We examinecomponents of home and neighbourhood among older South Africans. Linear regression analyses revealed that features of home (basic amenities, household composition, financial status and safety) and neighbourhood (ability to shop for groceries, participate in organizations and feel safe from crime) are significantly associated with life satisfaction. Approaches to liveability that are person-centred and also set within contexts beyond home and neighbourhood are needed to addressboundaries between home and neighbourhood; incorporate personal resources into liveability models and import broader environmental contexts such as health and social policy

Concurrent Exposure of Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) to Multiple Algal Toxins in Sarasota Bay, Florida, USA

Sentinel species such as bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) can be impacted by large-scale mortality events due to exposure to marine algal toxins. In the Sarasota Bay region (Gulf of Mexico, Florida, USA), the bottlenose dolphin population is frequently exposed to harmful algal blooms (HABs) of Karenia brevis and the neurotoxic brevetoxins (PbTx; BTX) produced by this dinoflagellate. Live dolphins sampled during capture-release health assessments performed in this region tested positive for two HAB toxins; brevetoxin and domoic acid (DA). Over a ten-year study period (2000–2009) we have determined that bottlenose dolphins are exposed to brevetoxin and/or DA on a nearly annual basis (i.e., DA: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009; brevetoxin: 2000, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009) with 36% of all animals testing positive for brevetoxin (n = 118) and 53% positive for DA (n = 83) with several individuals (14%) testing positive for both neurotoxins in at least one tissue/fluid. To date there have been no previously published reports of DA in southwestern Florida marine mammals, however the May 2008 health assessment coincided with a Pseudo-nitzschia pseudodelicatissima bloom that was the likely source of DA observed in seawater and live dolphin samples. Concurrently, both DA and brevetoxin were observed in common prey fish. Although no Pseudo-nitzschia bloom was identified the following year, DA was identified in seawater, fish, sediment, snails, and dolphins. DA concentrations in feces were positively correlated with hematologic parameters including an increase in total white blood cell (p = 0.001) and eosinophil (p<0.001) counts. Our findings demonstrate that dolphins within Sarasota Bay are commonly exposed to two algal toxins, and provide the impetus to further explore the potential long-term impacts on bottlenose dolphin health

Moving from victim blaming to an appreciative inquiry : exploring quality of life in care homes

This paper highlights the need for researchers to work across disciplinary boundaries in order to capture the complexity that care practitioners have to engage with everyday in care home settings. Drawing on findings from a literature review on the complexity of loss in continuing care institutions for older people, the case is made for less victim blaming and more appreciative approaches to research. The way this thinking informed the development of a further literature review on quality of life in care homes (My Home Life) is discussed. Findings from this second study are shared by illustrating key messages with quotes from older residents, relatives and staff living, visiting and working in care homes. These best practice messages focus on: transition into a care home; working to help residents maintain their identity; creating community within care homes; shared decision-making; health and health services; end-of-life care; keeping the workforce fit for purpose, and promoting positive culture. The importance of collaborative working in both research and practice is discussed. The paper is likely to be of interest to all those concerned with improving and developing evidence-based practice in the care home sector, including users and service providers, managers, commissioners and inspectors, policy-makers, researchers and teachersPeer reviewe

From home to ‘home’: Situating emotions within the care-giving experience

Emotions are an integral part of our daily lives, affecting who we are and how we react to the people and places around us. This emotiospatial hermeneutic has particular resonance for understanding informal carers’ experiences of transitions in the place of care. Yet little work has explicitly addressed the link between emotions, care, and place. That which has focuses largely on community and the home, and largely ignores the transition of care from the home to care-home settings. Drawing on carer narratives from New Zealand, this paper examines how emotion and the affective entity of informal caregiving for frail older people is manifest and experienced as the site of care shifts from the private space of the home to the semipublic space of the residential care home. In doing so, the paper contributes, first, to conceptual debates around the geography of emotions, and, second, to a deeper understanding of how informal carers seek to create new identities for themselves as carers in the new place of care. Finally, drawing on debates around the meaning of home, I consider the extent to which informal carers can feel ‘at home’ caring for their spouse or close family member within care-home settings