Aging & Social Change: Ninth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

Social care funding is reducing in spite of a growing older population and domiciliary services are failing to deliver care that respects the individuality and heterogeneity of older people (EHRC, 2011). Limited research explores, from the older person’s perspective, how care practices interact with self. Using biographical narrative methodology, this paper takes a constructionist approach to understand the lived experience of care and interaction with sense of self. A three-stage model of data collection was used: 1. Narrative biographic enquiry, exploring with participants (65yrs+, n=17) their journeys into care and relationship to personal identity; 2. A two-week period of diary completion, with participants recording daily reflections on care experiences; 3. Semi-structured interview exploring diary entries, linking to the narrative biographic enquiry to reveal ways that care practices interacted with the sense of self. Findings reveal a strong relationship between older person and carer, forged through familiarity, regularity, and consistency, plays a significant role in promoting feelings of autonomy and dignity. Furthermore such relationship mediates against the loss of executional autonomy that often accompanies increasing disability. Maintaining autonomy and control is recurring theme in relation to home, privacy, and dignity. Feelings of autonomy and dignity are promoted when carers understand the unique ways that individuals experience ageing and being in the cared-for relationship. This study suggests both the importance of understanding and respecting the older person’s continuing development of self, and applying this knowledge to care through a positive, stable, and consistent relationship between the older person and the carer.