This chapter focuses on the qualitative research undertaken through engagement with older respondents within the Fiction and Cultural Mediation of Ageing Project (FCMAP). Through consideration of FCMAP’s underlying methodologies and its data collection drawn from reflective diaries kept by University of the Third Age (U3A) Volunteer Reading Groups (VRGs), responses to a directive issued to existing diarists by the Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex with longitudinal analytical comparisons, and transcripts of ‘Ageing Re-imagined’ literary events and associated author interviews, FCMAP mapped the patterns of experience of and attitudinal responses to ageing. This chapter also outlines FCMAP’s development and subsequent data analysis in relation to key elements and outlines FCMAP’s collaboration with researchers from think-tank Demos and its prioritising of policy aspects of the research context, producing a policy report Coming of Age before summarising its overall findings.
This is the second volume arising from the ground-breaking New Dynamics of Ageing Research Programme. While the Programme produced many scientific papers and several project-based books this (and its companion volume) is the only place where most of the projects are represented in specially commissioned chapters. Each of these reports the key findings from each research project and places them in a wider context. Each chapter also contains a summary of key findings. Like its predecessor this book covers a wide range of state-of-the-art research on ageing, with a specific focus on autonomy and independence, the biology of ageing, nutrition in later life and representations of ageing.
This is the second volume arising from the ground-breaking New Dynamics of Ageing Research Programme. While the Programme produced many scientific papers and several project-based books this (and its companion volume) is the only place where most of the projects are represented in specially commissioned chapters. Each of these reports the key findings from each research project and places them in a wider context. Each chapter also contains a summary of key findings. Like its predecessor this book covers a wide range of state-of-the-art research on ageing, with a specific focus on autonomy and independence, the biology of ageing, nutrition in later life and representations of ageing.
Prevalence and risk of malnutrition amongst older people admitted to hospital remains high and a holistic approach to nutritional management is needed. An ethnographic study across 5 hospitals identified several factors contributing to undernutrition in older people in hospital, underpinned by a lack of accountability in nutritional care. The current study adopted an iterative co-design process to develop a novel prototype for nutritional care in hospitals that employed a series of smart interfaces and built a chain of accountability into patient food provision.
This chapter concludes the book by first extracting the key findings from each of the preceeding chapters. This provides an easy to access summary of the main policy-orientated implications of one half of the NDA Programme (to match the similar summary in volume 1). Then the overall contribution of the NDA Programme is assessed briefly under the headings, including multi-disciplinarity, Research methods and theory building. In addition to the authors’ personal evaluation evidence is drawn from an independent one.
This chapter reports the findings of the NDA project ‘Families and Caring in South Asian Communities’, which focused on understanding the experiences and perceptions of old age and later life among Bangladeshi and Pakistani elders. Particular emphasis was placed on investigating social identities and levels of participation in transnational, national and local communities; perceptions and experiences of family lives, social networks, ‘place’ and locality; and ideas, meanings and experiences of ‘care’ and ‘support’. The chapter discusses the key methodological challenges, summarises the main substantive themes and considers how different these are (or are not) from the general population in order to begin to distil the unique or novel dimensions of the experience of ageing among those populations. The chapter raises critical questions about the extent to which policy and practice recognise the diversity of experience with regard to notions of ageing.
This chapter examines the possibilities of the ‘bystander intervention model’ to explore the decision making of health and social care professionals when detecting and attempting to prevent financial elder abuse. It is often suggested that the cases that come to the attention of professionals represent the ‘tip of the iceberg’. If this is the case, argue M Gilhooly, Cairns, Davies, K Gilhooly and Harries, at various points in the decision making process professionals must be deciding not to intervene. Although this UK study goes some way to explaining why professionals find it difficult to detect financial elder abuse, or fail to act when they suspect such abuse, the study also revealed that many professionals do play safe and act even when in doubt. The finding that ‘mental capacity’ was a key determinant of both certainty that abuse was taking place, and likelihood of intervention, is concerning. Prevention requires that such abuse is detected well before an older person loses mental capacity.
This chapter introduces the book by providing an overview of the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme, which comprised a total of 35 projects covering most of the major issues of ageing from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The chapter will then introduce individual chapters by summarising their subject matter and arguments. Finally, all of the projects supported by the Programme are listed together with their Principal Investigators.
Older people’s perspectives on their experiences of ageing and dependency shed light on the complex nature of dignity as a personal and social concept. In this study, participants revealed how, as they became dependent on others for support and care, their lives felt increasingly precarious and their sense of dignity was challenged. Influenced by their life-course experiences as well as by their social circumstances, their response to this challenge included both perseverance and adjustment to change. The attitudes and behaviour of others, including those of professionals, contributed in crucially important ways to maintaining their sense of identity and dignity.
This chapter describes Project MINA, an intergenerational and transnational project using a mixed-methods approach to investigate migration, nutrition, and ageing in two generations of Bangladeshi women living in the UK or Sylhet, Bangladesh. Results indicate that varied migration histories and changing family structures play an important role in influencing nutritional status, perceived and actual health status, and future health and social care needs of ageing Bangladeshis in the UK. Future research should focus on developing culturally and linguistically tailored research tools to assess dietary intake and eating behaviours within this population, and examine the complex interplay between family dynamics, cultural norms and social influences that impact the ability of older Bangladeshi adults to eat more healthfully and engage in physical and social activities that promote healthy ageing.
