Being Occupied With What Matters in Advanced Age

This article illuminates one key finding of an interpretive phenomenological study that brought an occupational lens to exploring how elders experience ageing in their everyday lives. Fifteen community-dwelling, New Zealand elders aged 71 to 97, 4 Maori and 11 non-Maori, were purposively recruited. Data were gathered through individual interviews focused on stories of everyday moments and photographs of the participant’s hands only while engaged in doing a chosen occupation. Discrete stories were drawn from the narrative data and interpreted, guided by Gadamerian hermeneutics and Heideggerian phenomenology. The notion of ‘doing what matters’ emerged as participants spoke of having one occupation that was of primary importance to them. This one compelling pursuit showed as an enduring interest over time, illuminating the temporal unity of past, present and future in advanced age. Accordingly, the boundaries of researching occupational engagement in advanced age ought to be redefined. Instead of a current emphasis on understanding elders’ participation in daily activities, activity categories and patterns, occupational science research might deepen the focus to understand how engagement in subjectively compelling occupations is associated with ageing well and longevity

Settlement Patterns in the Chifeng Region

Non peer reviewedPostprin

Being occupied in the everyday

This chapter draws on the stories told by elder New Zealanders as a way of illuminating the deeply contextual, habitual, relational and precarious nature of engaging in everyday occupations. In the telling we hear how routines matter because they give shape and structure to a day. Having a purpose, however, calls one into engaged activity with enthusiasm. Everyday occupations offer connectedness in time and with others. They can give a sense of continuity which stretches back into the distant past and which projects forward into the future. Memories and deeply held social customs matter. As such, those important to one‟s life who have died still stay as part of the livings‟ relational context. Paradoxically, we also hear how the ordinariness of familiar occupations is the context for the unfamiliar to be made visible. Precariousness is ever-present. These and other complexities of being in the everyday in advanced age, such as aloneness, and intergenerational relationships are analyzed vis-à-vis occupation using both a phenomenological and a transactional perspective. It is only by understanding the holistic, contextual nature of engaging in everyday occupations that one comes to recognize that when working with older people one must sensitively listen and think before acting. A transactional perspective provides the conceptual tools to support this practice

Integrative Review of Older Adult Loneliness and Social Isolation in Aotearoa/New Zealand

To conduct an integrative review of empirical studies of loneliness for older people in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Loneliness is a risk factor for older people's poor physical and cognitive health, serious illness and mortality. A national survey showed loneliness rates vary by gender and ethnicity

The promise of internationally collaborative research for studying occupation: the example of the older women's food preparation study

Growing awareness of the Western perspectives underpinning occupational science and occupational therapy’s values, theories, and evaluation tools has given rise to questions about culturally relevant knowledge and practice with non-Western populations. To make sense of attempts to develop cross-cultural knowledge taking place within the profession and discipline, the authors review epistemological perspectives and methodological advances in anthropology and psychology. Thus informed, they both summarize and critique constructivist and positivist approaches to knowledge development and practice that cross or resist the crossing of cultures. The authors outline a multicultural collaborative research method that supports extending and refining the profession’s knowledge in a way that both honors local perspectives and reveals concepts that cross cultures. Insights from a study that explored the meaning of food preparation to older Thai, American, and New Zealand women provide illustrative examples

Healthy Pacific Grandparents: A Participatory Action Research Project Exploring Ageing Well Amongst Pacific People in New Zealand

The New Zealand older adult population (aged 65+ years) is growing at a faster rate than the younger population, with many of those in the later years living much longer. The proportion of older Pacific people is forecast to reach 4.1% of the country’s total population within the next two decades, highlighting the importance of research focused on ageing Pacific populations. This article sets out the research protocol and methods for the Pacific Islands Families: Healthy Pacific Grandparents’ Study, which aims to investigate older Pacific people’s viewpoints on ageing to identify specific cultural values, perspectives and understandings as the Pacific population in New Zealand ages. The study will recruit and utilize participants from a grandparent cohort that is nested within the families of the longitudinal Pacific Islands Families Study. This study uses a Participatory Action Research approach to position the participants in a leadership role where they are co-researchers involved in both the research and the implementation of recommendations. Utilizing a transformative research process will bring older Pacific people together to define for themselves their needs and their experiences, identify any areas of shortcoming, and support the implementation of solutions through strategic and informed actions