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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)
Meanings and experiences of assistive technologies in everyday lives of older citizens: a meta-interpretive review
- Authors:
- DAHLER Anne Marie, RASMUSSEN Dorte Malig, TANGGAARD Pernille
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 11(8), 2016, pp.619-629.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- London
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to synthesise the available qualitative studies on the meaning of assistive technologies (AT) in elderly people's everyday lives in order to identify central concepts, themes, and findings from existing research. Method: A systematic search of the literature was conducted, using predetermined search strategies. Exclusion criteria were, in accordance with the meta-interpretive approach, developed iteratively during the reading of abstracts and articles. Interpretations from the studies were used as data for thematic analysis and synthesis of findings. Results: Review of these studies show that older people not only have positive attitude towards AT, but also that acceptance of technologies is a potentially stressful process where trust towards technologies and other people are of importance. Older people have ambivalent experiences with technology, as it gives rise to possibilities as well as constraints, and safety as well as worries. AT enact sometimes conflicting values related to self and society. Conclusions: Although AT seem to support societal discourses on active ageing, the empirical studies in this field show that the technologies enter older people’s lives in complex ways, enacting social values and ambivalences and interact with caretakers, relatives and other actors, within specific institutional settings. Implications for rehabilitation: a) In implementing AT, attention should be paid to ambivalences and conflicting values enacted by AT in older people's lives; b) In implementing AT, attention should be paid not only to independency but also to the eventually dependencies, created by the use of AT (Publisher abstract)