A Place to Call Home
Dilemma of Maintaining Nearness and Maintaining Distance: Living and Caring as a Co-resident Spouse in a Nursing Home
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cristina Joy Torgé
For caregiving spouses, a partner’s move to nursing home care may provide necessary respite. Nonetheless, caregiver identity changes, rather than disappears, in the nursing home transition. Research describes spouses as frequent and engaged visitors, and the interface of formal and informal care is well-researched. There is, however, less research on co-resident spouses, despite possibilities for couples to cohabit in supported accommodation and a projected growing demand. In Sweden, spouses may live with their partners in nursing homes, although they are relatively healthy. This paper examines the accompanying spouses’ situation of living together and caring for a partner in a nursing home. Observations were conducted in five Swedish nursing homes where couples, one partner requiring extensive help and the other relatively healthy and independent, resided. Thirty-one interviews with the six couples and different members of staff that worked with them, were made. Spouses put value on the nearness to their partner during their last years of life, and see caregiving as a natural continuation of their earlier life. However, they also find it hard to maintain a distance from caregiving as they live in close proximity to their partner, and as they need to surrender caregiving responsibility to the staff.
Understanding Convoys of Care in Australian Rural Aging Populations
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Suzanne Hodgkin
Supporting older people to live independently is increasingly complex with demographic shifts predicted to impact on the availability of formal and informal care. In rural areas, factors associated with comparatively poor health status and distance from health care services highlight the importance of informal care networks. Drawing on the convoy of care model, this study develops a comprehensive understanding of how older adults mobilize the support they need. Cross-sectional data were collected from six Australian rural regions via a telephone survey (n=266). This was followed by qualitative, semi-structured interviews (n=60). Participants were asked to name up to fifteen people in their network and to identify the types of care and assistance they received from each member. A comprehensive network analysis was conducted to determine the age, gender, relationship, and proximity of those named. All participants were able to name at least one person in their care network; however, there was variance in the number and in the mix of kin and non-kin relationships, with proximity and the kin relationship being central to the type of support provided. This study underscores the importance of convoys of care as enablers of rural older people ageing in place.
Residential Choices after Age Sixty: Aging in the Community or Aging in a Community?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anne Laferrère
With population ageing, the issue of care delivery to the dependent population becomes crucial. “Ageing in place,” in the community, seems the favourite option, as opposed to living “within a community” such as nursing homes (NH). We concentrate on the housing choices of those sixty-plus as revealed by their decision to move or not, and the type of home they choose, using five waves of the SHARE survey on health ageing and retirement in thirteen European countries. The annual mobility rate is a low 2%. Moreover two-thirds of movers stay in the same municipality. Moves to private homes declines after age sixty-five and increases with the number of children, bringing family members closer. Mobility or ADL limitations induce to change residence. Moves to a NH are more likely for those with cognitive impairment, who have no spouse, or no child living close by. They are less likely for the highly educated or the wealthy. This as a sign that the preferred option is to live in the community. Moving to a NH at the end of life is only linked to health and disability. The 56% of movers who “downsize” have lower wealth, have lost their spouse, and had more unoccupied rooms. The desire to “age in place” is likely to go on in the future. Hence the necessity to adapt homes and neighbourhoods, organize home care, and adapt NH to more heavily disabled people, especially with dementia, or closer to the end of their lives, needing highly qualified care.
