Search results for ‘Subject term:"older people"’ Sort:
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The promise of assistive technology in institutionalized old age care: economic efficiency, improved working conditions, and better quality of care?
- Authors:
- SIREN Anu, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 16(5), 2021, pp.483-489.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- London
Purpose: Assistive technologies in care work are expected to alleviate the challenges related to population aging, namely the pressure on public budgets and a shortage of care professionals. This study examines how various stakeholders view the potentials of assistive technology in an institutionalized care setting in Denmark. Method: Using ethnographic field observations, interviews, and document analysis, we explore the residents’, the staff’s, and the municipality’s perspectives on the technologies and analyze whether they live up to the stated expectations. Results: We identify three parallel narratives representing each of the stakeholder’s perspectives. The municipality’s triple-win narrative emphasizes expected gains in terms of efficiency, improved working conditions, and better quality of care. The staff’s ambiguity narrative contains both negative views regarding the motive for using technologies to save resources and positive accounts of how technologies have reduced work-related pain. The residents’ limited agency narrative reflects an internalization of the staff’s perspectives. Conclusions: We conclude that, despite both the staff and the municipality highlighting the residents’ well-being and comfort as important outcomes of assistive technologies, the residents’ wishes have limited influence on whether and, if so, how assistive technologies are used. (Edited publisher abstract)
Formal and informal care: trajectories of home care use among Danish older adults
- Authors:
- KJAER Agnete Aslaug, SIREN Anu
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 40(11), 2020, pp.2495-2518.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
To adjust future care policies for an ageing population, policy makers need to understand when and why older adults rely on different sources of care (e.g. informal support versus formal services). However, previous scholars have proposed competing conceptualisations of the link between formal and informal care, and empirical examinations have often lacked a dynamic approach. This study applied an analytical method (sequence analysis), allowing for an exploratory and dynamic description of care utilisation. Based on 15 years of data from 473 community-dwelling older individuals in Denmark, this study identified four distinct clusters of care trajectories. The probability of belonging to each cluster varied with predisposing factors (such as age and gender), needs factors (such as dependence in activities of daily living and medical conditions) and enabling factors (such as co-habitation and contact with adult children). A key finding was that trajectories characterised by sporadic use of informal care were associated with low needs and strong social relations, whereas trajectories characterised by reliance on formal care were associated with high needs and limited contact with children. Taken together, the findings provide new evidence on the associations between care use and multiple determining factors. The dynamic approach to studying care use reveals that sources of individual care utilisation change over time as the individual and societal determinants change. (Edited publisher abstract)
International policy perspectives on independence in old age
- Author:
- PLATH Debbie
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Aging and Social Policy, 21(2), April 2009, pp.209-223.
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
Although the promotion of independence is a common feature of policies on older people across the world, independence has a variety of meanings that are shaped by different social, political and economic contexts and by different values and attitudes towards older people. This study compares policies in Australia, Denmark, India and the UK. In Australia and the UK, liberal democratic values translate into support for individual independence in old age. In Denmark, a strong emphasis on social responsibility and the right to public services means that choice, rather than independence, for older people is the prime focus. In India, independence is of less significance in the context of economic constraints and strong social values supporting family responsibility for the care of older people. This analysis raises important questions about the promotion of independence as a goal in the aging policies of international bodies such as the UN and WHO.
The influence of social relations on mortality in later life: a study on elderly Danish twins
- Authors:
- RASULO Domenica, CHRISTENSEN Kaare, TOMASSINI Cecilia
- Journal article citation:
- Gerontologist, 45(5), October 2005, pp.601-608.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
The authors examined whether the presence of a spouse and the frequency of interaction with children, relatives, and friends significantly influence the risk of dying in late life. They assessed these effects separately by gender, controlling for self-reported health. In addition, whether interaction with the co-twin has a different impact on mortality for identical and fraternal twins was examined. The data set consists of 2,147 Danish twins aged 75 years and older, who were followed prospectively from 1995 to 2001. The results found that survival is extended by having a spouse and close ties with friends and the co-twin. However, contact frequency with friends and the co-twin is significant, respectively, only for women and identical twins. The results stress the importance of social relations beyond the presence of the spouse for survival even at very old ages.
Empowering older people: an international approach
- Editors:
- THURSZ Daniel, NUSBERG Charlotte, PRATHER Johnnie
- Publisher:
- Cassell
- Publication year:
- 1995
- Pagination:
- 233p.,bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- London
Presents papers from experts from 17 countries on empowering older people as individuals, through organisations, and in developing countries.
Best of Danish
- Author:
- LINEHAN T.
- Journal article citation:
- Care Weekly, 6.8.92, 1992, p.12.
Describes a sheltered home complex in Denmark.
Ideals lost? Current trends in Scandinavian welfare policies on ageing
- Author:
- DAATLAND Svein Olav
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of European Social Policy, 2(1), 1992, pp.33-47.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Considers the extent to which the traditional ideals underlying the Scandinavian welfare state - solidaristic and egalitarian - are under threat in the light of signs of less state ambition, and public criticisms about the amount of public expenditure.
Contrasting European policies for the care of the elderly
- Editors:
- JAMIESON Anne, ILLSLEY Raymond
- Publisher:
- Avebury
- Publication year:
- 1990
- Pagination:
- 199p., tables, bibliogs.
- Place of publication:
- London
Looks at Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK. Part 1 examines the relationship between formal and informal care, Part 2 deals with care systems and care delivery problems. Includes chapter by Ian Sinclair, Peter Gorbach, Enid Levin and Jenny Williams: 'Community care and residential admissions: results from two empirical studies'.
Potentiality made workable - exploring logics of care in reablement for older people
- Author:
- BODKER Malene Norskov
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 39(9), 2019, pp.2018-2041.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
In the face of population ageing, Western health-care systems are currently demonstrating an immense interest in mobilising older people's potentials. With this agenda in mind, several countries have introduced reablement: a type of home care aimed at mobilising older people's potentials for independence by means of short-term training programmes. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Denmark's home care sector, this paper explores how elder-care professionals translate the abstract notion of ‘potentiality’ into practice. Theoretically, the paper draws on Annemarie Mol's term ‘logic of care’. The author demonstrates that professionals draw on two co-existing logics of care: a logic of reablement encapsulating ideals of successful ageing and life-long development; and a logic of retirement, which in contrast allows people at the end of life to retreat and engage in enjoyable activities. Professionals manage to balance these logics in order to live up to policy obligations while at the same time complying with moral standards of good care. However, very little is achieved in terms of increased independence. The author argues that by narrowly focusing on bodily and quantifiable potentials, the ‘potentiality paradigm’ holds the risk of deeming older people to lack potential. In conclusion, the article encourages a more inclusive approach to elder-care and ageing that recognises the complexities of ageing, including older people's potentials for retreat and leisure. (Edited publisher abstract)
The fragmented welfare state: explaining local variations in services for older people
- Authors:
- JENSEN Per H., LOLLE Henrik
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Policy, 42(2), 2013, pp.349-370.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
- Place of publication:
- Cambridge
Much research focusing on the welfare state is based on the assumption that welfare regimes are homogenous entities. This idea is supported by studies analysing cash benefits. In the area of welfare services, however, local governments in most countries have some autonomy regarding policy formation as well as the design and implementation of policies. In practice, substantial local differences exist with regard to the provision of welfare services, which in turn challenge our conception of nation-wide homogenous welfare state regimes. This paper examines the factors causing marked differences in local government spending in the provision of care for older people in Denmark. The conclusion is that the wealth of the municipality, local demographics and privatisation can explain about 48 per cent of the differences in local government spending. Political factors such as the ‘colour’ of local government have no explanatory power, while a high percentage of women in municipal councils appears to have a slightly negative effect on spending. (Publisher abstract)