This study explored the stories of six elderly Latino immigrant women living in Winnipeg based on their talk about identity and home. Using narrative analyses, the research focused on their life stories before and after immigrating and made use of pictures to discuss their notion of home. These women provided rich narratives of how people and places shaped their identities during their formative and pre-immigration years. At the same time, the circumstances that compelled them to emigrate, the places to which they arrived and live now, the people they met in Winnipeg and elsewhere, and the new roles they embraced in Canada have all contributed to a renegotiation of these women’s identities. These women showed that home is family, but that family is often symbolized by objects, places, and pictures that represent the memories they have of, and share with, their family members.

The growing prevalence of overweight and obesity among United States (U.S.) elderly people today is a health concern. Higher incidences of obesity and obesity-related health conditions and mortality exist in the southern area of the U.S. Understanding obesity in relation to obesity-related factors in this population is crucial. The purpose of this study was to identify regional differences and associations between obesity and obesity-related factors in Southern U.S. elderly people, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, using data from the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), an existing telephone health survey administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Through frequency tests, chi-square tests, and a multinomial logistic regression, the results revealed no regional difference in weight status among U.S. elderly people. However, multinomial logistic regression indicated some consistent associations with weight status among Southern U.S. elderly people. Males, Blacks and married elderly people, along with those diagnosed with high cholesterol, diabetes, and hypertension were associated with both overweight and obesity. Associations found between Southern U.S. elderly people who were overweight or obese and obesity-related factors support the need to continue to encourage elderly people living in the South to control their weight.

In the aging world of today, more attentions are grabbed towards studies on elderly. New facilities and technologies are emerged to serve to the elderly, maketheir life easier, better and more useful. Having participated in a study on thequality of life of the elderly in Europe, it was aimed to run a similar project toresearch the quality of life of the elderly in a Non-EU country. This was donethrough the research questions “What is the quality of life for them?” and “Howa designer, focused on service design, can improve their quality of life?”The knowledge for the study was obtained from fields Quality of Life of ElderlyPeople, Service Design, Service Design Process, and Qualitative Research. As thekey country for this study, Iran was chosen. Study on the target group in thiscountry was done through Cultural Probes and in analyzing the probes, Processfor Empathy in Design was used. To visualize the results of the target group study,Affinity Diagrams and Personas were drawn.The result was designing a service for the target group, which is presented byConcept Scenario, Storyboards, System Maps and Blueprints. In this concept,called “Virtual Family”, the personas are encouraged to be members of a networkwhich is supported by an organization/community in terms of health, social life,leisure activities and educational programs. This network is forming a virtualfamily regarding the traditional values and ethics which are important for thisage group. Additionally it supports them with entertainment and educationalprograms. Later on, the service concept was evaluated by a number of people inthe same age and social group of the target group. Evaluators found the conceptan excellent complement for mentioned target group who are on the verge oflosing their family and social structure, but the organizational system of the contextcountry should be studied to know if it is planning is practical in that context.

Background: Climate change has increased the frequency, intensity, duration, and spatial extent of some extreme weather events, for instance heat waves. Societies today are experiencing an ongoing change in the population structure yielding an increasing proportion elderly due to increased longevity, resulting in higher prevalence of chronic and degenerative diseases. Literature suggests that the elderly and certain susceptible subgroups with chronic disease are among the most vulnerable to heat waves and elevated temperatures. Aim: The main aims of this thesis were to expand the scientific knowledge on the short-term effects of extreme heat on mortality for the general population and certain susceptible groups in society, to investigate the development of this relationship over time and to attribute mortality to observed climate change. Methods: Daily numbers of deaths and daily meteorological observations during three different periods were collected for present day Stockholm County, Sweden. The analyses of the relationship between mortality and temperature extremes were analysed using a time series approach. The regression models assumed the daily counts of mortality to follow an overdispersed Poisson distribution and adjustments were made for time-trends as well as confounding factors. Results: The literature review of recent studies identified a strong relationship between heat and heat waves and increasing death rates among the elderly, particularly for respiratory and cardiovascular mortality. A statistically significant increase in total daily mortality during heat extremes in all decades investigated, as well as over the entire period, during the period 1901-2009 with a declining trend over time for the relative risk associated with heat extremes, was reported in paper II. For the period 1901-2009 cold extremes significantly increased mortality, with a more disperse pattern over individual decades and no declining trend over time. Paper III attributed increased mortality due to climate change between 1900-1929 and 1980-2009. This increase was mainly due to a large number of excess heat extremes in the latter time period. Furthermore certain subgroups of the population above 50, were in paper IV found to have significantly increased mortality during heat waves as compared to non-heat wave days. Conclusions: Although the relative risk of dying during extreme temperature events appears to have fallen in Stockholm, Sweden, such events still pose a threat to public health. The elderly population and certain susceptible subgroups of the population experience higher relative risks of dying on heat waves days as compared to normal summer days. Some of the groups most susceptible during heat waves were identified. In order to minimize future impacts of heat waves on public health, identifying susceptible subgroups in an ageing society as well as develop strategies to reduce the impact of future temperature extremes on public health will be important.

This thesis presents the design of an interactive tool to improve elders’ social interactions. First, we studied the social interactions of the elderly. These interactions often diminish as elders experience dynamic physical, social, and cognitive decline. We examined how technology might extend these diminishing social interactions. We looked for the ways to minimize the technological barriers faced by the elderly in order to more easily integrate the technology into their lives. The final design focused on social interaction through travel and knowledge of a place. It is a service called ‘My City Counselor’, which allows elders to share their knowledge about local places they know well. This tool is designed to support the elderly in building new relationships or in maintaining close existing relationships by providing useful local information or by sharing common memories.

No description available.

The number of elderly people around the world is growing rapidly. This has led to an increase in the number of people who are seeking assistance and adequate service either at home or in long-term- care institutions to successfully accomplish their daily activities. Responding to these needs has been a burden to the health care system in terms of labour and associated costs and has motivated research in developing alternative services using new technologies. Various intelligent, and non-intelligent, machines and robots have been developed to meet the needs of elderly and people with upper limb disabilities or dysfunctions in gaining independence in eating, which is one of the most frequent and time-consuming everyday tasks. However, in almost all cases, the proposed systems are designed only for the personal use of one individual and little effort to design a multiple-user feeding robot has been previously made. The feeding requirements of elderly in environments such as senior homes, where many elderly residents dine together at least three times per day, have not been extensively researched before. The aim of this research was to develop a machine to feed multiple elderly people based on their characteristics and feeding needs, as determined through observations at a nursing home. Observations of the elderly during meal times have revealed that almost 40% of the population was totally dependent on nurses or caregivers to be fed. Most of those remaining, suffered from hand tremors, joint pain or lack of hand muscle strength, which made utensil manipulation and coordination very difficult and the eating process both messy and lengthy. In addition, more than 43% of the elderly were very slow in eating because of chewing and swallowing problems and most of the rest were slow in scooping and directing utensils toward their mouths. Consequently, one nurse could only respond to a maximum of two diners simultaneously. In order to manage the needs of all elderly diners, they required the assistance of additional staff members. The limited time allocated for each meal and the daily progression of the seniors??? disabilities also made mealtime very challenging. Based on the caregivers??? opinion, many of the elderly in such environments can benefit from a machine capable of feeding multiple users simultaneously. Since eating is a slow procedure, the idle state of the robot during one user???s chewing and swallowing time can be allotted for feeding another person who is sitting at the same table. The observations and studies have resulted in the design of a food tray, and selection of an appropriate robot and applicable user interface. The proposed system uses a 6-DOF serial articulated robot in the center of a four-seat table along with a specifically designed food tray to feed one to four people. It employs a vision interface for food detection and recognition. Building the dynamic equations of the robotic system and simulation of the system were used to verify its dynamic behaviour before any prototyping and real-time testing.

Bakgrund Förlust av förmågan att utföra självständig ADL är ett vanligt problem hos äldre i slutenvården. Detta leder till lidande och förlängda vårdtider. För att kunna utveckla omvårdnaden och för att motverka detta behövs ökad insikt om patienternas upplevelser vid minskad ADL-förmåga. Syfte Att beskriva äldre patienter med försämrad ADL-förmågas upplevelser av sin vård gällande utförande av ADL inom slutenvården. Metod Kvalitativ intervjustudie med åtta äldre patienter inneliggande på ett svenskt universitetssjukhus. Resultat Studiedeltagarna upplevde överlag att vården och personalen fungerade bra och att detta förbättrade deras upplevelse av att ha minskat i ADL-förmåga. Studiedeltagarna tyckte det var jobbigt att vara beroende av andra och få hjälp med personlig hygien. Vårdavdelningarnas rutiner och upplevelsen av att personalen var stressad gjorde att studiedeltagarna inte ville vara till besvär och ställa krav. Slutsats Resultaten visar att det finns ett behov av att utveckla ett mer personcentrerat förhållningsätt där riskpatienter identifieras och får möjlighet att vara delaktiga i arbetet för att stärka förmågan till självständigt utförande av ADL. / Background Loss of the ability to independently perform tasks of basic ADL is a common problem in the care of institutionalized elderly. Loss of ADL function is a source of suffering and prolonged institutionalization. It is necessary to effectively counter the risks and develop the care a deeper insight of the experiences from patients with losses in their ADL function. Purpose To describe experiences of performing of ADL in hospital as described by institutionalized elderly with a loss of ADL function. Methods Qualitative interviews with eight elderly patients institutionalized at a Swedish university hospital. Results The participants had in general a positive opinion of the care they received and they felt that it improved the feeling of having lost some ADL function. They felt troubled about being dependent of someone else and getting help with private hygiene on the basis of its personal nature. The routines and the experience of stressed staff made the participants reluctant to make demands or ask for help. Conclusion The results of the study showed that there is a need to develop a person centered approach where patients at risk are identified and given opportunity to participate in the work to strengthen their ability to perform ADL independently.

This article investigates the experience of loneliness among a group of elderly ladies. Elderly persons are making up an increasing portion of the population. Research is therefore important, because loneliness is a threat to quality of life and indicates a bad prognosis during aging. Aging is associated with a decline in the different abilities and body functions. It is marked by changes and multidimensional losses that often imply the redefinition of roles. Little research is available that explores the subjective experiences of elderly women. It was decided to do a qualitative, phenomenological study on the experiences of loneliness among white Afrikaans-speaking women. A phenomenological research approach enables the researcher to discover participants' perceptions, experiences and unique understanding of what loneliness involves. The research was undertaken in the context of a service centre where functioning elderly ladies voluntarily participated in the research. Fifteen elderly ladies were involved in the research by means of purposeful sampling, and their experiences of loneliness were shared through visual clay projections (known as the Mmogo method™), a focus group discussion, individual interviews and journal entries. The Mmogo method™ attaches value to the symbolic, contextual foundation of meanings and provides valuable information about socially constructed aspects that are often difficult to verbalise. Various guidelines were followed to ensure the reliability of the findings, such as the triangulation of data sources, checking the findings with the participants, an extended period in the research field and the inclusion of rich descriptions to corroborate the findings. Two central themes emerged from the thematic data analysis process, namely causes of loneliness and strategies to deal with loneliness. The causes of loneliness which were identified, point towards multiple losses at a personal level, interpersonal losses, changed family relations and a world of living that keeps getting smaller. The strategies to deal with loneliness were indicated by elderly women as the actualising of religion, reminiscing on the past, an active involvement in life and denial. The most important contribution made by this research is the discovery that elderly white ladies experience an intimate loss of the "self" because their own identity was strongly associated with the specific roles and functions that were defined by the socio-cultural context in which they were socialised. These functions and roles emphasised the ultimate authority of the man, as opposed to women's dependence and subjection. In this process, women did not develop an independent identity that could continue once the prescribed traditional roles no longer applied. Another interesting finding is that elderly women find it comforting to reminisce on the past and they also find that the knowledge they gain from the experience can be applied in their lives again. This study could possibly have been extended to elderly women in other cultures, in order to obtain a richer description of the research phenomenon. Various practical suggestions were made to the service centre to support elderly women to process the multiple losses, to question socially acceptable roles and functions of women and to create own interests. / Thesis (M.A. (Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

The Chinese government has long assumed that families will bear the social and health care burden of the older population. However, this is becoming increasingly difficult and is hardly a model of care that can be sustained with the projected growth of the older demographic. Since the late 1970s, China has successfully controlled the population growth by applying the One-Child Policy. However, its byproduct, the “4-2-1 problem”, along with the unavoidable trends of globalization and migration, means that older generations must often rely on themselves, and not their children or grandchildren, for care and support. To prepare for this challenge – the weakening of traditional filial piety – this proposal of an active retirement community centre for calligraphy art reflects a desire for a new way of living during the second half of life. Instead of viewing old age as a residual period, this proposal sets the stage for older adults to continue their contributions as they age. Calligraphy performance as a traditional cultural activity offers older adults a great balance between activity and leisure, caring for the body and caring for the soul. Additionally, the artistic quality of calligraphy art is used to express and convey ideas for the design process.