Abstract
Purpose of the Study
Participatory design (PD) is widely used within gerontechnology but there is no common understanding about which methods are used for what purposes. This review aims to ...examine what different forms of PD exist in the field of gerontechnology and how these can be categorized.
Design and Methods
We conducted a systematic literature review covering several databases. The search strategy was based on 3 elements: (1) participatory methods and approaches with (2) older persons aiming at developing (3) technology for older people.
Results
Our final review included 26 studies representing a variety of technologies designed/developed and methods/instruments applied. According to the technologies, the publications reviewed can be categorized in 3 groups: Studies that (1) use already existing technology with the aim to find new ways of use; (2) aim at creating new devices; (3) test and/or modify prototypes. The implementation of PD depends on the questions: Why a participatory approach is applied, who is involved as future user(s), when those future users are involved, and how they are incorporated into the innovation process.
Implications
There are multiple ways, methods, and instruments to integrate users into the innovation process. Which methods should be applied, depends on the context. However, most studies do not evaluate if participatory approaches will lead to a better acceptance and/or use of the co-developed products. Therefore, participatory design should follow a comprehensive strategy, starting with the users’ needs and ending with an evaluation if the applied methods have led to better results.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the range of critiques of successful aging models and the suggestions for improvement as expressed in the social gerontology literature.
We conducted a ...systematic literature review using the following criteria: journal articles retrieved in the Abstracts in Social Gerontology, published 1987-2013, successful aging/ageing in the title or text (n = 453), a critique of successful aging models as a key component of the article. Sixty-seven articles met the criteria. Qualitative methods were used to identify key themes and inductively configure meanings across the range of critiques.
The critiques and remedies fell into 4 categories. The Add and Stir group suggested a multidimensional expansion of successful aging criteria and offered an array of additions. The Missing Voices group advocated for adding older adults' subjective meanings of successful aging to established objective measures. The Hard Hitting Critiques group called for more just and inclusive frameworks that embrace diversity, avoid stigma and discrimination, and intervene at structural contexts of aging. The New Frames and Names group presented alternative ideal models often grounded in Eastern philosophies.
The vast array of criteria that gerontologists collectively offered to expand Rowe and Kahn's original successful model is symptomatic of the problem that a normative model is by definition exclusionary. Greater reflexivity about gerontology's use of "successful aging" and other normative models is needed.
Abstract
We introduce “community gerontology” as an area of research, policy, and practice that aims to advance understanding of communities as fundamental contexts for aging and its diversity, and ...to leverage this understanding for change. We present a foundational framework for community gerontology in three parts. First, we discuss the mesolevel as the unifying construct for community gerontology. Second, we describe community gerontology’s focus on pathways of mutual influence between the mesolevel with more micro and macro contexts over time. Third, we put forth community gerontology’s emphasis on gerontologists’ participation in community change processes to facilitate more optimal experiences of aging among diverse population subgroups. We conclude by describing the integrative nature of community gerontology and the ways that this framework can advance research on particular substantive areas, as well as gerontology as a whole.
This paper addresses the absence of the term ‘senescence’ in recent social science literature on ageing. The significance of this omission is considered in light of the emerging standpoint of ...gero-science, which argues that the central processes defining ageing are concerned with the rising probability of functional decline, development of degenerative disease and death. From this perspective, the separation of ageing and senescence sustains the myth that there exist forms of ageing that are exempt from senescence. The persistence of this myth underlies ageing studies, the sociology of later life and most social gerontology. While there have been undoubted benefits arising from this bracketing out of senescence, the argument of this paper is that the continuing advances associated with this standpoint are outweighed by the need to seriously engage with the consequences of contemporary societal ageing and the centrality of the processes of senescence in establishing an adequate understanding of ageing, its correlates and contingencies and its personal and social consequences.
•Senescence as a concept is missing from the social science literature on ageing•Separating ageing from senescence suggests that forms of ageing exist exempt from senescence•Gero-science sees ageing and senescence alike as processes underlying decline, disease and death•Recognising the social structuring of later life is important•Bracketing senescence out of social gerontology risks evacuating ageing of substantive meaning
Abstract
Background and Objectives
Informal caregiving to older adults is a key part of the U.S. long-term care system. Caregivers’ experiences consist of burden and benefits, but traditional ...analytic approaches typically consider dimensions independently, or cannot account for burden and benefit levels and combinations that co-occur. This study explores how benefits and burden simultaneously shape experiences of caregiving to older adults, and factors associated with experience types.
Research Design and Methods
2015 National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) and National Study of Caregiving (NSOC) data were linked to obtain reports from caregivers and recipients. Latent class and regression analysis were conducted on a nationally representative sample of U.S. informal caregivers to older persons.
Results
Five distinguishable caregiving experiences types and their population prevalence were identified. Subjective burden and benefits level and combination uniquely characterize each group. Primary stressors (recipient depression, medical diagnoses), primary appraisal (activities of daily living, instrumental activities of daily living, medical task assistance, hours caregiving), and background/contextual factors (caregiver age, race, relationship to recipient, mental health, coresidence, long-term caregiving) are associated with experience types.
Discussion and Implications
Findings highlight caregivers’ experience multiplicity and ambivalence, and identify groups that may benefit most from support services. In cases where it is not possible to reduce burden, assistance programs may focus on increasing the benefits perceptions.
Chronological age is invariably used as a categorizing tool for spaces, collections, and programs in public libraries. With age-based conceptions of human experience in library practice, education, ...and scholarship primarily focused on those under the age 18, little is known how age-based classifications are implemented in public libraries, and with what impacts, for older library patrons.
Stemming from a larger project that seeks to bring attention to the ways in which public libraries engage with community-dwelling older adults, this paper explores 51 older patrons' perspectives on the numbers and language (e.g., 55+, older adult, seniors, adult) assigned to older adults in library programs and which label best (or least) suits their sense of identity and, in turn, what language encourages or deters their engagement with library programs.
Findings illustrate that age-based language describing older adult library programs is often at odds with patrons' perceptions of how library programming relevant to them ought to be labeled. Common to all participants was a clear dislike for the term "elderly." While most participants preferred "older adult" to "senior," others voiced no preference, as long as they felt heard and valued. Many participants linked the use of language used to describe library programs to being excluded from and treated differently from other (younger) library patrons.
The language used to group and describe different library populations directly shapes feelings of belonging (or exclusion) in library programs. Insights from this research contribute to our evolving understandings of the ways in which language connected to age can shape one's sense of identity. Results also serve to cultivate a more sensitive and critical approach to the question of age within library science, and, by extension, the experiences of older adults who frequent the library.
This paper sought to investigate possible implications of population aging in the work process of multiprofessional residents who make-up the Family Health Strategy workforce in a Brazilian ...municipality. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out, adopting the mixed method of analysis, according to the nature and origin of the data. The paper exposes difficulties faced/reported by the professionals, as well as highlights perceptions that may, in a certain way, be influenced by subjectivities that illustrate points to be analyzed with caution, especially in future studies. It was found that the work attitudes adopted by the residents permeate a positive view of the care provided to the elderly, highlighting the importance of the bond, territorial recognition and the functioning of local healthcare networks. However, the results also showed a low degree of knowledge among the professionals about geriatric-gerontological instruments that guide healthcare for the elderly, which could affect the quality of the health care provided.
Population aging and international migration are two of the most critical social trends shaping the world today. As a result, scholars across the globe have begun to investigate how to better ...incorporate ethnicity into gerontological research. The integration of insights from life-course theory, post-colonial, and feminist theories have resulted in valuable attempts to tackle issues related to ethnicity and old age. Inspired by these bodies of research, this paper explores how decolonial perspectives can strengthen social gerontological research at the intersection of ethnicity and old age.
This theoretical paper advances four key insights drawn from decolonial perspectives that expose some current blind spots in gerontological research at the intersection of aging and ethnicity. Through a process of awareness and resistance decolonial perspectives reveal that: 1) colonial thinking is deeply embedded in research; 2) critical reflection about who is considered the “knower” in research is warranted; 3) alternative ways to generate, analyze, and publish knowledge exist; and 4) the places and systems of knowledge production are not neutral. To address these issues empirically, decolonial frameworks call us to actions that include decolonizing the conceptual underpinnings of the research enterprise, scholars themselves, research-in-action (through “epistemic disobedience”), and current knowledge systems and structures that reflect and reinforce colonialism. Potential applications of these insights are explored, but acknowledged as an essential first step on a nascent path.
This paper concludes by arguing that decolonial perspectives offer a more genuine gaze by demanding nuanced reflections of contemporary realities aging persons embodying the intersection of aging and ethnicity, like racialized older migrants and ethnic minorities, while simultaneously revealing how historically-rooted power hierarchies that are often invisible constrain their aging experiences.
•Research about the intersection of aging and ethnicity is oblivious to nuances.•Colonial thinking is deeply embedded in our thinking and research about this topic.•Decolonization of gerontological research is needed.•Four new insights about decolonization in gerontological research are proposed.•Decoloniality provides an open gaze to capture the complexity of this intersection.
Abstract
Purpose of the Study
A destandardization of labor-force patterns revolving around retirement has been observed in recent literature. It is unclear, however, to which degree and of which ...kind. This study looked at sequences rather than individual statuses or transitions and argued that differentiating older Americans’ retirement sequences by type, order, and timing and considering gender, class, and race differences yields a less destandardized picture.
Design and Methods
Sequence analysis was employed to analyze panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) for 7,881 individuals observed 6 consecutive times between ages 60–61 and 70–71.
Results
As expected, types of retirement sequences were identified that cannot be subsumed under the conventional model of complete retirement from full-time employment around age 65. However, these retirement sequences were not entirely destandardized, as some irreversibility and age-grading persisted. Further, the degree of destandardization varied along gender, class, and race. Unconventional sequences were archetypal for middle-level educated individuals and Blacks. Also, sequences for women and individuals with lower education showed more unemployment and part-time jobs, and less age-grading.
Implications
A sequence-analytic approach that models group differences uncovers misjudgments about the degree of destandardization of retirement sequences. When a continuous process is represented as individual transitions, the overall pattern of retirement sequences gets lost and appears destandardized. These patterns get further complicated by differences in social structures by gender, class, and race in ways that seem to reproduce advantages that men, more highly educated individuals, and Whites enjoy in numerous areas over the life course.
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