The number of older residents in group homes for people with intellectual disability (ID) is increasing. This interview study was focused on how group home staff addresses issues of ageing and being old among people with ID. Twelve members of staff at four different group homes in Sweden were interviewed. Findings revealed old age as something unarticulated in the group home. Group home staff felt unprepared to meet age-related changes in residents. The study also revealed that group home staff had a one-tracked way of describing the process of ageing among people with ID, seemingly rooted in a medical paradigm of disability. This study suggests that there is a need to raise issues and give guidance related to ageing and ID in disability policy documents in order to support the development of a formal culture that addresses old age and ID in disability services.

Free choice in elderly care services is a debated issue. Using the theoretical support of philosophers of free will, this paper explores free choice in relocation to residential care. The three dominant perspectives within this field of philosophy, libertarianism, determinism and compatibilism, are applied from the perspective of the older individual to the process of moving. Empirical data were collected through qualitative interviews with 13 older individuals who had recently moved into residential care. These individuals had made the choice to move following either a health emergency or incremental health problems. In a deterministic perspective they had no alternative to moving, which was the inevitable solution to their various personal problems. A network of people important to them assisted in the move, making the choice possible. However, post-move the interviewees’ perspective had changed to a libertarian or compatibilist interpretation, whereby although the circumstances had conferred little freedom regarding the move, the interviewees reported a high degree of self-determination in the process. It appeared that in order to restore self-respect and personal agency, the older individuals had transformed their restricted choice into a choice made of free will or freer will.

This paper presents an analysis of two short-term care facilities with support of Actor-Network Theory with the aim to reveal performative processes in different networks in buildings in use. The two facilities differed in architectural design which was expected to influence the care model and organisation. One facility was larger and accommodated four patients/residents in double-rooms together with permanent residents who stayed in single-rooms. The other was smaller and accommodated only short-term care in single-rooms. The study revealed that the latter received more care-demanding people than the other. The size and the type of patients/residents influenced the social environment. The larger one was more busy and lively than the smaller. However, the analysis did not show any difference in quality of care or ambiance. Both facilities were valued as either good or bad by different residents or staff members. The study concludes that therapeutic values and outcomes are defined and redefined in the ongoing performances of everyday interactions.

We investigate how different mealtime situations help shape teenager and staff subjectivities in two Swedish residential care homes and a special school for girls and boys, 12–15 years old, with social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties. Three mealtime networks are analysed using concepts from actor–network theory, treating architectural space and artefacts, as well as teenagers and staff, as actors. The architectural spaces in the kitchen and dining room were first created for other purposes than residential care for troubled youth (i.e. a former farm, hospital, and preschool) and have been adapted to be more homelike while coping with housing and feeding 20 or more people. The original architectural spaces as well as activities before mealtimes were powerful actors in the mealtime network, causing different subjectivities to emerge in the translations. The subjectivities emerge in the first network as offenders/guards, in the second network as small children/nannies, and in the third network as guests/service staff. The different translations in the three meal networks create different mobilization opportunities for the teenagers concerning responsibility and normality.

The aim of this article is to explore how older people with intellectual disability (ID), who live in group accommodation, describe their lived experience in relation to ageing and later life. The study adopted a phenomenological approach, based on the concept of life-world. Individual, qualitative interviews were conducted with twelve people with ID (five men, seven women), between the ages of 48 and 71 (m=64), who lived in four different group accommodation units in southern Sweden. A descriptive phenomenological analysis method was used, which disclosed a structure consisting of themes and subthemes. The findings of the study reveal the informants’ lived experience of ageing and later life as a multifaceted phenomenon, expressed through the two themes, “age as a process of change” and “existential aspects of ageing”, each with three sub themes. along with six substantialising[SK1]  subthemes. The body is an essential element in their experience of ageing and growing old, and in how this experience is expressed. The study also finds social, cultural and historical dimensions of the life-world to be important in the informants’ experience of ageing and later life. This supports understanding of  the existence of a collective life-world for older people with ID, the unique experiences the informants share because of their disability and its consequences for their life course.

Background

Urine incontinence (UI) has been the focus of a considerable number of research projects; yet, there is no evidence that the research has had an impact on the prevalence of UI. Despite great impact on daily living, women seem to be reluctant to seek help from professionals or talk about the problem. Apart from this, scholars have noted that healthcare practitioners rarely ask older women about this health aspect and seem to minimise the problem when confronted with it.

Aim

The purpose of the study was to explore how meaning of UI was discursively constructed and negotiated by women bothered with long-term UI in the context of research interviews.

Method

Seven women aged 60–65 living in the Faroe Islands were interviewed to elaborate on daily living with long-term UI. The interview texts were analysed by means of discourse analysis.

Results

Three main themes emerged from the interviews. All the women related the disorder to their age and positioned themselves within the category ‘old women’ for whom UI was considered a normal condition. At the same time, they opposed to the idea that the condition was inevitable and accused their general practitioners of negligence by failing to take their complaints seriously. They felt ashamed of being incontinent and seemed to subject themselves to moral and aesthetic views about people who were not able to control their bladder function.

Conclusion

All the women used different cultural discourses to make meaning of UI and continuously negotiated these meanings. Avoiding public exposure of their leaking problem restricted their daily living, and the embarrassment of not being able to control their bladder function seemed to overrule any wish of actively dealing with their present condition.

Föreliggande utvärdering har avsett att värdera de resultat som framkommit under första året för Testmiljö Norrköping. En viktig del av utvärderingen har utgjorts av att förstå och reflektera kring nyckelaktörers och deltagares resonemang kring sitt deltagande, sina upplevelser av och syn på projektet. I utvärderingens syfte ingick även att lyfta vilka mervärden och bieffekter som kommit fram under projektets första år.

Vid genomförande av föreliggande utvärdering har sammanlagt 14 kvalitativa intervjuer genomförts. Nio av dessa intervjuer har varit med personer som är nyckelaktörer inom projektet. Fem intervjuer har utförts med personer som deltagit i surfplatteutbildningen. Utöver de kvalitativa intervjuerna har en enkät delats ut till samtliga personer som deltagit i surfplatteutbildningen. Enkätens svarsfrekvens var hög, då 45 av 54 tillfrågade besvarade enkäten.

Utifrån utvärderingens resultat- och analysdel är vår bedömning att man inom projektet Testmiljö Norrköping uppnått det övergripande målet att under projektets första år etablera stadsdelarna Såpkullen och Vilbergen som testmiljöer för digitala tjänster och lösningar riktade till personer över 75 år. Denna bedömning motiveras av att man etablerat kontakter med intresserade företag som vill genomföra olika tester inom ramen för projektet samt att man arrangerat surfplatteutbildningar där sammanlagt 64 personer deltog. Genom att man lyckats nå ut till denna grupp av personer och koppla dem till testmiljön har man lagt en viktig grund för testmiljöns framtid. Vår bedömning är även att bredden i styrgruppen och det stora externa intresset för testmiljön innebär potentialer till att länka till andra aktiviteter, yrkesområden, organisationer och projekt.

Vad gäller deltagarnas uppfattningar av och syn på utbildningen var de överlag nöjda med utbildningens uppläggning och innehåll. Övergången från att gå en surfplatteutbildning till att faktiskt använda en surfplatta i vardagen har visat sig vara komplex och varierande mellan informanterna. Utbildningen har bidragit till att deltagarna vågat pröva sig fram på surfplattan på egen hand. Att man genom utbildningen upplever sig vara delaktig i samhället och att man tack vare utbildningen upplever att man följer med i samhällsutveck-lingen, var något majoriteten av deltagarna tog upp i intervjuerna samt i enkätsvaren.

Beträffande nyckelaktörernas perspektiv på projektets första år framgick att styrgruppens sammansättning uppfattades som relevant. Alla i styrgruppen upplevde projektets innehåll och mål som betydelsefulla utifrån den verksamhet man representerade.

Under projektets första år har flera oväntade resultat och ändringar i inriktning uppkommit. Att kalkylera och ge utrymme för oväntade resultat är svårt då man på förhand inte kan veta vilka oväntade resultat och händelser som kan inträffa. Att synliggöra dessa förändringar kan bidra till en förståelse för hur komplex framväxten av projektet varit. Det kan även bidra till att identifiera oväntade hinder som kan vara tidskrävande att överkomma, men även till att belysa vilka positiva resultat och mervärden som kan komma ur det oväntade.

Utvärderingen är författad av Axel Ågren, Catharina Nord och Elisabet Cedersund (alla verksamma vid NISAL, Linköpings universitet) på uppdrag av vård- och omsorgskontoret och PUFF-enheten, Norrköpings kommun. PUFF-enheten är en forsknings- och utvecklingsverksamhet inom välfärdsområdet. Inom PUFF-enheten ingår Norrköpings, Söderköpings, Finspångs och Valdemarsviks kommun i samverkan.

In Sweden, as in many other countries, students that schools are unable to handle are removed from their local environments and sometimes from their parental homes and moved to rural residential care homes. Although ‘home’ and ‘school’ are clearly considered places where problems exist, it is not these places that are scrutinised and subjected to change, but the students. How do the change of place and the performance of the alternative ‘home’ and alternative ‘school’ contribute to the students’ adjustment? In this article we explore the significance of place in these measures and ask questions about how possibilities for agency and subjectivities are produced.  The article is based on an ethnographic study of two residential care homes for troubled youth, aged 12 to 15. The results show how complex assemblages produce opportunities and limitations for care and education and how location and buildings partake in the constitution of possible subjectivities and agency. The analysis inspired by Actor-Network Theory (ANT) can capture mobility and flow, an important aspect when studying complexity. This kind of analysis enables a study of the complex arrangements for disadvantaged youth that takes into consideration not just social interactions but also materiality.

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