Search results for ‘Subject term:"older people"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 3 of 3
Keeping disease at arm's length: how older Danish people distance disease through active ageing
- Author:
- LASSEN Aske Juul
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 35(7), 2015, pp.1364-1383.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
Many older people live with a range of chronic diseases. However, these diseases do not necessarily impede an active lifestyle. In this article the author analyses the relation between the active ageing discourse and the way older people at two Danish activity centres handle disease. How does active ageing change everyday life with chronic disease, and how do older people combine an active life with a range of chronic diseases? The participants in the study use activities to keep their diseases at arm's length, and this distancing of disease at the same time enables them to engage in social and physical activities at the activity centre. In this way, keeping disease at arm's length is analysed as an ambiguous health strategy. The article shows the importance of looking into how active ageing is practised, as active ageing seems to work well in the everyday life of the older people by not giving emphasis to disease. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork and uses vignettes of four participants to show how they each keep diseases at arm's length. (Publisher abstract)
Coexisting principles and logics of elder care: help to self-help and consumer-oriented service?
- Authors:
- DAHL Hanne Marlene, ESKELINEN Leena, HANSEN Eigil Boll
- Journal article citation:
- International Journal of Social Welfare, 24(3), 2015, pp.287-295.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Healthy and active ageing has become an ideal in Western societies. In the Nordic countries, this ideal has been supported through a policy of help to self-help in elder care since the 1980s. However, reforms inspired by New Public Management (NPM) have introduced a new policy principle of consumer-oriented service that stresses the wishes and priorities of older people. The authors have studied how these two principles are applied by care workers in Denmark. Is one principle or logic replacing the other, or do they coexist? Do they create tensions between professional knowledge and the autonomy of older people? Using neo-institutional theory and feminist care theory, the authors analysed the articulation of the two policy principles in interviews and their logics in observations in four local authorities. It is concluded that help to self-help is the dominant principle, that it is deeply entrenched in the identity of the professional care worker and that it coexists with consumer-oriented service and without major tensions in the logics identified in their practices. (Edited publisher abstract)
Decision-making tools and their influence on caseworkers' room for discretion
- Author:
- HOYBYE-MORTENSEN Matilde
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 45(2), 2015, pp.600-615.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
One of the cornerstones in the provision of social services in modern welfare states is decision making about who is eligible for particular services or benefits. Here, the central decision maker is the caseworker who assesses clients’ needs and obligations. In response to concerns regarding decision-making processes and outcomes, decision-making tools directing how a decision should be made and documented are implemented. The literature on front line workers and regulation provides no clear answers concerning the relationship between regulation, such as decision-making tools, and room for discretion. This article explores how decision-making tools affect caseworkers’ room for discretion. The article reports on findings from a qualitative cross-sector study of three decision-making tools used in employment services, child protection and elderly services in Denmark. The empirical data consist of thirty group interviews with caseworkers. Even though all of the tools are in the shape of a form that is to be filled in, differences are found across decision-making tools. For instance, it seems as though forms based on a theoretical foundation have greater impact on caseworkers’ room for discretion than those based on an understanding of information as neutral and objective, since the latter requires intensive interpretation on the part of the caseworkers. (Publisher abstract)