Search results for ‘Subject term:"older people"’ Sort:
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Getting old is not for cowards: comfortable, healthy ageing
- Authors:
- REED Jan, et al
- Publisher:
- Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 70p.
- Place of publication:
- York
The project reported on here was commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as a way of exploring different ideas about health for older people, alternatives to medical models that defined health simply as the absence of disease. In these medical models, with their emphasis on physiology and cure, growing old becomes a process of experiencing increasing deficits and problems, and the goals of intervention are to prevent or treat these problems. Much medical research and the resources to support it therefore concentrate on these deficits, and define ‘healthy ageing’ as avoiding or escaping them. Partly in response to this deficit model, a movement has developed which seeks to promote the idea of growing older as positive experience. If services are based on ideas of health that have developed in professional and policy debates, then they run the risk of being, at best, irrelevant to the needs of older people and, at worst, dismissive of their views and damaging to them. Services that are designed to promote health for older people, therefore, need to take into account the ideas and wishes of older people themselves.
Older people doing it for themselves: accessing information, advice and advocacy
- Authors:
- KERR Laurie, KERR Vivien
- Publisher:
- Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 24p.
- Place of publication:
- York
This project aimed to establish the perceived and actual needs and requirements of two groups of older people: those who are currently pensioners and those who will become pensioners in the next 15–20 years. It looked at the provision and means of delivery of information, advice and advocacy. It was thought that, with better access to information, advice and advocacy, many older people could (if they wished) play a larger part in their community. Hopefully, this would lead to them being seen as ‘contributors’ to society rather than ‘consumers’ and as people not as ‘pensioners’ a term with which many older people of pensionable age would be happy to dispense. The project wished to bring to the fore the needs of all older people, regardless of ethnicity or creed, and to identify how they felt such provision would benefit and enhance their quality of life. At the same time, it aimed to demonstrate a range of possible means of delivering information, advice and advocacy, either on an individual or group basis according to their wishes, and including current and future technology. From the outset, it was recognised that, as bureaucracy does not ‘allow for the individual’, who nevertheless would require information on an individual basis, a main aim would be to look at: enabling people to ask the key questions; and showing people how ‘to work the system’.
Institutional ageism
- Author:
- LEVENSON Ros
- Journal article citation:
- Community Care, 17.07.03, 2003, pp.42-43.
- Publisher:
- Reed Business Information
Looks at work carried out by the King's Fund which suggests that age discrimination in health and social care services are often a question of attitude rather than policy. Discusses a number of principles to tackle age discrimination
Assessing anti-ageism routes to older re-engagement
- Author:
- DUNCAN Colin
- Journal article citation:
- Work Employment and Society, 17(1), March 2003, pp.101-120.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Assesses the value of UK anti-ageism policies as a means of tackling the exclusion of older workers. Looks at how these measures have arisen through the business case approach; equality routes; incorporating equal opportunities and diversity policies; and progress towards anti-age discrimination legislation. Argues that recent policy has been largely unsuccessful in tackling anti-ageim and that legislation will have to depart from the principles underlying voluntary approaches if it is to be successful.
What do employers really think of their older workers?
- Author:
- YEANDLE David
- Journal article citation:
- Generations Review, 13(1), January 2003, pp.24-25.
- Publisher:
- British Society of Gerontology
Reports on the results of a survey by the Engineering Employers' Federation on age discrimination issues. Discusses the results of the survey and the implications for Government policy.
A tapestry of voices: using elder focus groups to guide applied research practice
- Author:
- STEWART Sally
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 42(1), 2003, pp.77-87.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
One of the more subtle consequences of ageism is the exclusion of older adults from participating in the production of knowledge about issues that concern them. This qualitative study used 15 focus groups as a forum to elicit data about what elders themselves see as relevant and important areas for applied research. In addition to significant data that will be used to guide research initiatives at the Sheridan Elder Research Centre, the value that emerged in the process proved to be the validation of self-determination by elders, a principle fundamental to the Social Work Code of Ethics. This study demonstrates that, if given the opportunity to participate in decision-making about the scope and nature of applied research, older adults will contribute a wealth of rich data. (Copies of this article are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Centre, Haworth Press Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580).
Developing a locality-based approach to prevention with older people
- Authors:
- GODFREY Mary, RANDALL Tracy
- Publisher:
- University of Leeds. Nuffield Institute for Health
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 62p.
- Place of publication:
- Leeds
The aim of the study was to develop a conceptual framework and approach that might contribute to understanding how a locally-based preventive strategy for working with older people could be constructed. The initial two-fold definition of prevention, remains relevant in such a context. The first dimension of that definition (avoiding higher intensity and more costly care) has secured most attention and resources to date. However, greater priority for the second dimension (promoting the quality of older people’s life and their engagement in the community) would produce a more rounded approach to successful ageing.
What do you expect at your age?: a Help the Aged conference on age discrimination, 17 March 2003
- Author:
- HELP THE AGED
- Publisher:
- Help the Aged
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 16p.
- Place of publication:
- London
This conference marked the first anniversary of the Help the Aged Scrap It! Campaign against age discrimination, a campaign that has exposed the devastating effects of age discrimination and the ways in which it deprives us all of the skills, talents and society of older people.
Growing older in the 21st century
- Author:
- DEAN Malcolm
- Publisher:
- Economic and Social Research Council
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 17p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Older people in Britain are happier, healthier, and more resourceful than is generally supposed, but the message from the UK's biggest ever study of the quality of life in old age - the four-year Growing Older Programme funded by the Economic and Social Research Council - is that the Government needs to do more to ensure that the growing numbers of older people have a better life. While people are living longer, life expectancy went up by 25 years in the last century, older people still live in a climate that is characterised by prejudice, discrimination and social exclusion, with people over 80 (the fastest rising segment of the population) hit hardest of all.
Sentence completion to assess children's views about aging
- Authors:
- LICHTENSTEIN Michael, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Gerontologist, 43(6), December 2003, pp.839-848.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Two middle schools in San Antonio, TX agreed to have their students participate in the sentence completion exercises at the beginning of the 1998-1999 school year. Teachers asked students to write responses to the following prompts: "Old is ...," "You know you are old when ...," "You know your parents are old when ...," "When I am old, I ...," and "Old people ...." The authors coded the responses for their characteristics and whether they were positive, negative, or neutral. Of the 2,476 students, 1,874 (75.6%) wrote responses to at least one prompt. Overall, the authors collected 3,700 responses and coded 9,438 characteristics (2.6 characteristics per response). The most common characteristics of aging were having wrinkles (21.1%), having gray hair or being bald (20.0%), and being less active (17.5%). Students had a much more positive view of their future (55.4%) compared with their view of aging elicited by the other prompts (range of 4.9-25.7% positive responses). Students infrequently associated old age with specific conditions; only 4.6% mentioned diseases, 6.0% mentioned being ill or taking medications, and 5.7% mentioned sensory problems. Middle-school students view their futures much more positively than the changes they observe in their parents and other elders. Students infrequently identified specific diseases or impairments as responsible for the changes they observe with aging. These observed responses provide a starting point for educators to develop and deliver gerontologically based materials that teach about healthful habits to maintain independence across a life span.