Search results for ‘Subject term:"older people"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 2 of 2
The symbolic value of tai chi for older people
- Author:
- SCOURFIELD Peter
- Journal article citation:
- Quality in Ageing, 7(2), June 2006, pp.4-12.
- Publisher:
- Pier Professional
- Place of publication:
- Brighton
This article is based on a small-scale study into a tai chi class for older people at risk of falling. The aims of the research were to explore what benefits the class members felt they derived from practicing Tai Chi and whether they practiced Tai Chi at home. The research revealed that members did not believe that Tai Chi had reduced their risk of falling, though their commitment to Tai Chi was very strong. The findings suggest that tai chi had a symbolic value for this predominantly middle class group.
‘What matters is what works’? How discourses of modernization have both silenced and limited debate on domiciliary care for older people
- Author:
- SCOURFIELD Peter
- Journal article citation:
- Critical Social Policy, 26(1), February 2006, pp.5-30.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Policy statements about the care of vulnerable older people repeatedly emphasize the desirability of keeping people at home. An enduring problem in implementing this strategy is the ongoing crisis within the quasi-market in domiciliary care. The government announced in 2004 that it wanted a new vision for adult social care. In such circumstances, it could be argued that, in order to achieve home care services that are stable, flexible and better placed to integrate more effectively with health agencies, local authorities should significantly expand in-house provision. This article discusses how discourses of modernization exclude ideas that imply an expansion of directly provided social care. Such discourses have so much invested in the shedding of what it regards as outmoded ‘welfarist’ baggage, they are blind to proposals that could improve the lives of older, vulnerable citizens.