Quality Care
End-of-life Care, Relationships, and Ageing: Two Examples from Contemporary American Literature View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ieva Stončikaitė
Although population ageing is to be celebrated, it is also wedded to an increased need for carework that poses new demands on families and care services. This paper addresses the representations of end-of-life care and later life as depicted in the works of two contemporary American writers - Erica Jong and Mitch Albom. It examines the complexities of ageing from a perspective of cultural and literary age studies with a special focus on mentiorial relationship and family support. The paper shows how the experience of carework leads to the discovery of new ways of human interaction and a better understanding of living-with-dying. The two works also reveal that later-life narratives can be an integral part of the transmission of knowledge and humanistic values to establish solid relationships between generations. This presentation also aims to demonstrate how humanities-based inquiry and critical literary approaches towards old age can illuminate important aspects of ageing that are significant and revealing, but often unvoiced and underrepresented in gerontological scholarship. Literary texts can yield unique insights of personal crises and turning points, and show how people accommodate their developing sense of finitude as they grow older. At the same time, the end-of-life narratives reveal how carers learn news lessons about ageing, corporeality, and the meanings of life and death. Such ‘insider’ perspectives can help policymakers and health care professionals implement strategies to improve the care needs of older people and the lives of the family members who take care of them.
Exploring Care Receipt among Centenarians: Preliminary Results from the SWISS100 Study View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Barbara Masotti
Becoming a centenarian often means having health issues and/or cognitive restrictions to deal with. Moreover, there is a risk of having a small social network to rely on: Centenarians may live longer than their loved ones who may also be affected by age-related health issues. Research on care receipt among this population is still scarce: What types of helps do they get in their everyday life and from whom? Do they get the support they need? The aim of this presentation is to investigate the care receipt (or non-receipt) among centenarians living in Switzerland and to explore the existence of inequalities in this regard according, for instance, to gender and linguistic region. To meet our research aim we will analyse data from the first nation-wide Swiss centenarian study SWISS100. Between 2021 and 2022, during the first stage of the study, the data collection consisted of telephone interviews with centenarians (N=96) or family members as proxy informants (N=80), yielding data for 176 centenarians. Regarding care, through open-ended questions, we asked whether and what types of informal and formal helps centenarians received in their everyday life. Based on these answers and on data on living situations (residential setting and household composition) we build a typology of the various care arrangements and analyse their association with individual and macro factors. Results are discussed considering context specificities and in terms of long-term care policy and culture.
Social Isolation and Loneliness among Centenarians Living at Home and in Long-term Care Facilities: Results from the SWISS100 Study View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Daniele Zaccaria
As the OECD reports, there is an increasing demand for long-term residential care, especially for the oldest-old. However, some scholars underscored that living in long-term care facilities may lead to social exclusion, more specifically to the risk of being socially isolated and lonely. Nevertheless, research comparing social isolation and loneliness between the noninstitutionalised and institutionalised oldest-old is still scant. We investigate sociodemographic and health correlates of social isolation and loneliness in institutionalised and home-dwelling centenarians and the association with institutionalisation per se. Data were collected in 2021 through phone interviews in the context of SWISS100, an ongoing study of centenarians living in Switzerland. The sample included 98 institutionalised and 56 home-dwelling centenarians recruited via in-person or proxy interviews. We applied descriptive statistics to evaluate differences in social isolation and loneliness between institutionalised and home-dwelling centenarians and ordered logistic regression models to assess the association between isolation and loneliness and individual characteristics (e.g., education, subjective health). On average, institutionalised centenarians reported fewer social contacts and higher loneliness than home-dwelling ones. Sociodemographic and health indicators differentially predicted social isolation and loneliness in these two populations. Furthermore, institutionalisation per se showed a significant effect on loneliness but not on social isolation. Our findings show that living settings shape centenarians’ levels of social isolation and loneliness, differentiating the contribution of personal determinants. Furthermore, living in long-term care facilities plays by itself an independent role in predicting loneliness. This prompts considering carefully the living environment when analysing determinants of social exclusion of the very old.
