Ageing in an autobiographical context

Abstract

A cohort study was carried out in 1990 in Jyväskylä, central Finland among 80-year-old residents as part of the Evergreen project. A total of 262 people born in 1910 were interviewed. In addition to epidemiological data, tape-recorded narrative stories focusing on the ageing experience were collected from a subsample of 20 people (10 men and 10 women). A five-year follow-up was carried out with the same cohort in 1995. Out of the 20 people in the original subsample, 17 (8 women and 9 men) were still alive to describe their ageing experience at 85. The analysis proceeded along the hermeneutic circle in the form of dialogue, first with the elderly narrators and then with the tape-recorded material. Unlike five years previously, most of the narrators said they had now crossed the line into old age. These findings are considered in light of the concepts of ageing, bodiliness and temporality.