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Adapting the adaptations process: tackling the barriers within policy and practice
- Author:
- MCCALL Vikki
- Publisher:
- UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence
- Publication year:
- 2022
- Pagination:
- 42
- Place of publication:
- Glasgow
This report gives insight to the fragmented policy landscape in Scotland around adaptations, with further experiences gathered from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There are many good practice examples throughout Scotland, and key stakeholders emphasise the important role for adaptations in the impact they make in people’s lives. However, the current systems that supports home adaptations in Scotland are fragmented, overly complex, and bureaucratic. These challenges undermine the preventive potential that adaptations can offer to service users. The report presents the perspectives of key stakeholders on how we can tackle the barriers within policy and practice within the adaptations process. Adaptations involve health and wellbeing-related home and environmental modifications for social, private renters and home-owners. In Scotland and throughout the UK, there are various adaptations processes that support the access, assessment and delivery of adaptations for service users. The report offers a new process for understanding the adaptations process, presenting barriers attached to governance, need awareness, information and advice, assessment, funding, design, delivery, evaluation & performance monitoring. Adaptations to homes and wider environments are essential for supporting health, social care and wellbeing needs, preventing health crises and future proofing homes for a diverse and ageing population. The processes that support adaptations, however, are fragmented, difficult to understand, and involve clear divergence between both local authority area and tenure. The evidence offered in this report leads to a clear need for finding a common approach across Scotland for supporting adaptations. (Edited publisher abstract)
‘I feel so much safer’: unravelling community equipment outcomes
- Authors:
- SAINTY Mandy, LAMBKIN Christopher, MAILE Louise
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 72(11), November 2009, pp.499-506.
- Publisher:
- Sage
This study looks at the impact of community equipment services on the health and wellbeing outcomes of choice and control, quality of life, and personal dignity. Questionnaires were sent out to 483 adults who had been prescribed community equipment by social or primary care services to meet mobility needs (97), domestic activity needs (99), bathing needs (150), toileting needs (93) and sensory needs (44). A response rate of 52% was achieved. Seventy-eight per cent of respondents reported that they were using all the equipment prescribed. Of those who were using the equipment, 91% reported feeling safer and over 80% said that it made a positive difference to their independence, quality of life or ability to do things when they wanted. Bathing equipment was either very successful or not used at all, and the authors suggest that there is scope to maximise the effective use of bathing equipment. The provision of equipment had less of an impact on reducing the need for assistance at home, particularly from paid carers.
The needs and experiences related to driving cessation for older people
- Authors:
- LIDDLE Jackie, et al
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 71(9), September 2008, pp.379-388.
- Publisher:
- Sage
Older people may cease driving owing to health concerns, discomfort while driving, cancellation of their licence or financial reasons. Because driving is fundamental to the freedom and independence of older people, driving cessation can lead to depression, loss of roles and unsafe use of alternative transport. Little consideration has been given to the development of approaches to improve outcomes for retiring drivers. This study aimed to understand the experiences of driving cessation for older people to inform the design of interventions for retiring drivers. Qualitative methodology was used to explore the experiences of driving cessation from the perspective of nine retired drivers, three family members and six service providers. The retired drivers experienced challenges during three phases of driving cessation, in addition to discussing their driving history. The challenges were (1) a predecision phase - a balancing act and achieving awareness; (2) a decision phase - making the decision and owning the decision; and (3) a post-cessation phase - finding new ways and coming to terms. Interventions to facilitate the process of driving cessation may need to be designed according to the phase of driving cessation and the challenges that the person is experiencing and to be underpinned by behaviour change and life transition theories.
Fear of falling and activity avoidance in a national sample of older adults in the United States
- Authors:
- BERTERA Elizabeth, BERTERA Robert L.
- Journal article citation:
- Health and Social Work, 33(1), February 2008, pp.54-62.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This study assesses the relationship between fear of falling and avoidance of nine everyday activities critical to independence among community-dwelling older adults in the United States. Secondary data analysis was performed with National Survey of Self-Care and Aging interview data from 3,474 respondents age 65 years or older. Falls were reported by 24 percent of respondents, fear of falling was reported by 22 percent of respondents, and both increased with age. Fear of falling was the most important factor in predicting activity avoidance among older adults; the number of falls experienced increases the impact that fear of falling has on activity avoidance. Other factors were as follows: needing help with activities of daily living and the number of prescriptions taken. Assessments of older individuals should include fear of falling and fall history. Reductions in fear of falling and increases in activity level could provide significant benefits by helping older adults to maintain functioning and the ability to live independently.
The role of perceived control in explaining depressive symptoms associated with driving cessation in a longitudinal study
- Authors:
- WINDSOR Timothy D., et al
- Journal article citation:
- Gerontologist, 47(2), April 2007, pp.215-223.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
The purpose of this article was to investigate the role of control beliefs in mediating the relationship between driving cessation and change in depressive symptoms in a population-based sample of older adults. The authors report results from a prospective, community-based cohort study that included two waves of Australian data collected in 1992 and 1994. Participants consisted of 700 men and women aged 70 and older, including 647 drivers and 53 participants who ceased driving between baseline (1992) and follow-up (1994). Participants took part in interviews that included assessments of driving status, sociodemographic characteristics, self-rated health, sensory function, depressive symptoms (through the Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression scale), and expectancy of control. Using multilevel general linear models, the study examined the extent to which driving status, expectancy of control, and relevant covariates explained change in depressive-symptom scores between baseline and follow-up. The results found driving cessation was associated with an increase in depressive symptoms from baseline to follow-up. The higher depressive-symptom scores of ceased drivers relative to those of individuals who remained drivers at both waves was partly explained by a corresponding decrease in the sense of control among ceased drivers, and increased control beliefs among drivers. Interventions aimed at promoting the maintenance of personal agency and associated control beliefs could be protective against the negative psychological concomitants of driving cessation.
Rights for real: older people, human rights and the CEHR
- Author:
- BUTLER Frances
- Publisher:
- Age Concern
- Publication year:
- 2006
- Pagination:
- 72p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Examines the importance of human rights law for older people, especially those who depend on public services. Shows that it is equally important to recognise any potential role of human rights as a framework of values underpinning the planning and delivery of public services. Argues that all public authorities have a role in making human rights a reality for older people.
In the right place: accessibility, local services and older people
- Author:
- BURNETT Alan
- Publisher:
- Help the Aged
- Publication year:
- 2005
- Pagination:
- 75p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Without accessible services and transport, older people can easily suffer social exclusion and lose their independence. This guide for planners of services and transport, looks at the needs of older people and at the problems they encounter in getting around, stressing that effective strategies can be developed only if older people are directly consulted
Declaration of independence
- Author:
- GLENDINNING Caroline
- Journal article citation:
- Community Care, 8.5.03, 2003, pp.40-41.
- Publisher:
- Reed Business Information
Discusses a new study by the Audit Commission in partnership with the Better Government for Older People Network which examines what independence really means to older people. To ensure the research was shaped by the views of older people, focus groups were organised by Age Concern in eight urban and rural areas across England. The study found that independence often meant having choice and control, rather than doing everything for yourself.
Older people and the meaning of independence
- Authors:
- FISK Malcolm, ABBOT Stephen
- Journal article citation:
- Generations Review, 8(2), June 1998, pp.9-10.
- Publisher:
- British Society of Gerontology
Maintaining independence is regularly cited as an objective of housing and care policies for older people. What is normally absent, however, is any consideration of what independence really means. Considers the meaning of independence is for older people.
We're in charge: cohousing communities of older people in the Netherlands; lessons for Britain?
- Author:
- BRENTON Maria
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- Publication year:
- 1998
- Pagination:
- 87p.,bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Bristol
Research study looking at fifteen groups of people aged fifty-five to eighty plus who, anticipating the possibility of a life alone, or increased frailty, have taken steps to start or join a CoHousing community. CoHousing is an arrangement whereby groups of older people live in their own residential project and form a community in the process, promoting independent and collaborative living in separate, self contained units.