Person-centred approaches in long-term care focus on providing holistic care to residents in order to improve quality of life, enhance resident wellbeing and autonomy, and mitigate behavioural and/or other symptoms. The results of research on person-centred approaches to care are mixed, with very few high-quality empirical studies examining resident outcomes specifically. The purpose of this investigation was to examine a person-centred care programme implemented in three Canadian long-term care facilities to determine its effect on resident outcomes, approach to care and maintenance of the programme three years after implementation. Using the Resident Assessment Instrument Minimum Data Set (RAI-MDS) scale scores and quality indicators, we retrospectively examined resident outcomes before, after and six months following the initiation of the programme using three additional facilities as control. We did not find any effects on resident outcomes. Focus group interviews with facility staff revealed no systematic differences between the programme and control facilities in their approach to care. All facilities supported aspects of a person-centred philosophy. Focus group interview data from the programme facilities indicated partial maintenance in two facilities and more complete maintenance in one facility. Although staff members supported the programme, implementation and maintenance proved difficult and effectiveness on resident outcomes was not indicated in this research. Additional controlled studies are needed.

Ageing and longevity have been central to the concerns of Western natural philosophy since their origins in Classical Greece. Greek medicine formulated the idea that the humours constituted the physiological basis of all living beings. Hippocrates identified these as blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile. Several hundred years later, Galen elaborated this Hippocratic doctrine, formulating the outlines of a theory of ageing and a regime to maintain health in old age. Formalised in Alexandria, the Galenic canon was later revised and expanded by physicians and philosophers from the Islamic world. The result was a theoretical superstructure linking together the humours, the elements (air, earth, fire and water) and the four qualities (heat, coldness, moisture and dryness) that constituted the basis of life, its development, decline and end. This ‘superstructure’ was further refined and revised during the Middle Ages, providing the theoretical basis for regimes for living well in later life that were written and published during the Renaissance. Although the ‘scientific revolution’ of the 17th century challenged Galenic medicine, many aspects of it survived into the modern period. This paper reviews the rise and demise of this tradition while also recognising that through much of this period other, more controversial approaches to the problems of ageing were espoused. In concluding, continuing points of contact with contemporary gerontological theory are emphasised.

There is a long history of surveillance of older adults in institutional settings and it is becoming an increasingly common feature of modern society. New surveillance technologies that include activity monitoring, and ubiquitous computing, which are described as ambient assisted living (AAL), are being developed to provide unobtrusive monitoring and support of activities of daily living and to extend the quality and length of time older people can live in their homes. However, concerns have been raised with how these kinds of technologies may affect user's privacy and autonomy. The objectives of this paper are (a) to describe the development of home-based surveillance technologies; (b) to examine how surveillance is being restructured with the use of this technology; and (c) to explore the potential outcomes associated with the adoption of AAL as a means of surveillance by drawing upon the theoretical work of Foucault and Goffman. The discussion suggests that future research needs to consider two key areas beyond the current discourse on technology and ageing, specifically: (a) how the new technology will encroach upon the private lived space of the individual, and (b) how it will affect formal and informal caring relationships. This is critical to ensure that the introduction of AAL does not contribute to the disempowerment of residents who receive this technology.

Community programmes have been shown to provide social and emotional benefits for older adults. The vast majority of community programmes for older adults are either mixed-sex or female-oriented in their activities and composition. As such, there is a scarcity of both opportunities for, and research focusing on older male adults’ participation in community programmes geared towards men. The present study describes the experiences of older male adults throughout their involvement in a male-oriented community programme. Participants described their involvement in the community programme on the basis of their characteristics and experiences that preceded their involvement, the characteristics of their current involvement, and aspects of the programme and their participation that promoted their continued involvement. The findings of this study have potential utility for community organisations aiming to increase the involvement of older men in their programmes. Furthermore, the findings indicate that community programme participation has the potential to promote social engagement and healthy, active ageing among older men.

This paper examines the relationships between self-reported loneliness and living arrangements. A structured questionnaire with some open-ended questions was administered face-to-face in English, Hindi or Punjabi to a sample of 161 elderly South Asian immigrants 60 or more years of age living in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 2003. The majority of respondents said that they never felt lonely. More than one in three (37.3%) respondents indicated that they felt lonely occasionally, frequently or all of the time. Those living alone were significantly more likely to report feeling lonely at least occasionally than were those living with others, especially those living with their spouse in an extended family. The fact that South Asian immigrant seniors typically lived with others, often in an extended family with or without their spouse, and rarely lived alone protected them to some extent from loneliness. However, our findings showed that among those living with others, it was the amount of waking time spent alone at home and the quality of family relationships rather than living arrangement per se that significantly predicted self-reported loneliness. Nevertheless, living in a larger household was associated with spending less time alone. We discuss plausible influences of culture on expectations regarding family and social relationships and on the meaning of being alone, as well as practical implications for addressing loneliness in a multi-cultural society.

Research on care managers' experiences of the needs assessment process is scarce even though the literature on needs assessment practice is relatively extensive. One of the research areas that has not received attention yet is the way in which care managers experience the challenges that are presumably posed by increased ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity among prospective elder care recipients. This article addresses this research gap. It is based on a project that aims to shed light on care managers' experiences of the needs assessment process in general and cross-cultural needs assessment meetings in particular. The data are constituted of focus group interviews with care managers in Sweden (N=60). In this article we focus on care managers' experiences of needs assessment with older people who have immigrated late-in-life, who come from cultures considered different from the Swedish one and who have not mastered the Swedish language. This was the group of older people that the care managers mostly thought of when asked to describe their experiences of cross-cultural needs assessment meetings. The interviewed care managers discussed the challenges that these meetings present, which were related to communication due to language barriers, different demands and expectations, insecurity regarding what is customary in such meetings, as well as perceived passivity among late-in-life immigrants. The article discusses the contributions of the findings to research on care management practices in general, as well as to needs assessment practice in particular.

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 article is based on a study with a phenomenological approach, grounded on the concept of life-world. Individual, qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 people with ID (five men, seven women), between the ages of 48 and 71 (mean=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 sub-themes. 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. The body is an essential element in their experience of ageing and growing old, and in how this experience is expressed. The study also found 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 lifecourse.

Although the proportion of older people using home care services has significantly increased in East Asian countries, the issue of the relationships between older people and home care workers in the East Asian context has received scant attention from scholars. This exploratory qualitative study aims to explore these relationships under the new Korean long-term care insurance system. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 family carers and private-sector home care service providers (home care workers and provider managers). The findings show that while the majority of family carers interviewed reported that their relationships were good, the majority of service providers' responses were more negative. Service providers stated that they experienced a number of difficulties that affected their relationships with older clients, including excessive demands or sexual harassment by the older people in their care, exposure to unsafe working environments, and poor treatment in terms of pay and conditions. The findings suggest that stable and good relationships between home care workers and their clients have not been secured in Korea's long-term care system.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the association between structural and cognitive aspects of social capital and self-rated health among adults aged 50 or more, living in three countries: Finland, Poland and Spain. The study, which was based on data from the European Social Survey (2008/09), was a part of the EU research project COURAGE in Europe. More specifically the paper assesses the association between social capital indicators – informal social network and general trust – and good self-rated health through single-level and joint effects analyses. The results showed that Finland was a country of high social capital, in terms of both social networks and general trust, while Spain showed low levels of general trust and Poland low levels of informal social networks. As to the association between social capital and self-rated health, high levels of general trust and high networks were found to be associated with good health among all countries' respondents. Older persons living in partnerships, with higher education, higher levels of engagement in informal networks and general trust, were found to be more likely to show good self-rated health. Our comparative analyses revealed different associations between social capital and health according to country.