Springer Science and Business Media LLC

With the aging of many populations, health careworkers and families increasingly findthemselves jointly involved in situationsinvolving decisions about nursing homeplacements. How each approaches suchsituations is affected by beliefs andassumptions about the role of family members inthe care of family members and the decisionmaking process. This paper explores theresponses of people from four cultural groupsliving in Australia (Anglo-Celtic Australian,Chinese, Greek, Lebanese) to a criticalincident scenario about a Russian family inAustralia faced with such a decision. Theresponses to this scenario were remarkablysimilar across the four cultural groups. Allsaw making such a decision as difficult, butthe reasons for the difficulty suggest someinteresting cross-cultural distinctions. Somegroups viewed care of a family member more interms of a social and role obligation whileothers addressed it as a personalresponsibility. To not care for elderlyparents in the home was accompanied by a senseof guilt among some respondents and a sense ofpublic social shame among others. Ambivalenceabout nursing homes and placing a family memberin a nursing home, culture change andcross-generational differences, and roles androle support were other important themes. Theresults are consistent with other data analysedin conjunction with the InterculturalInteraction Project. The findings from thisresearch suggests a need to examine moreclosely the beliefs and assumptions associatedwith nursing home placements and one way tohelp students and health professionals to doso.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) pandemic has left large numbers of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. Botswana has an HIV prevalence rate of approximately 40% in adults. Morbidity and mortality are high, and in a population of a 1.3 million there are nearly 50,000 children who have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. The extended family, particularly grandparents, absorbs much of the childrearing responsibilities. This creates large amounts of additional work for grandmothers especially. The embodied capital model and the grandmother hypothesis are both derived from life history theory within evolutionary ecology, and both predict that one important factor in the evolution of the human extended family structure is that postreproductive individuals such as grandmothers provide substantial support to their grandchildren's survival. Data collected in the pre-pandemic context in a traditional multi-ethnic community in the Okavango Delta of Botswana are analyzed to calculate the amount of work effort provided to a household by women of different ages. Results show that the contributions of older and younger women to the household in term of both productivity and childrearing are qualitatively and quantitatively different. These results indicate that it is unrealistic to expect older women to be able to compensate for the loss of younger women's contributions to the household, and that interventions be specifically designed to support older women based on the type of activities in which they engage that affect child survival, growth, and development.

The present study examined correlates of life satisfaction among 350 Chinese elderly aged 65 or older. Subjects consisted of a clinic sample (n = 200) and a randomly selected community sample (n = 150) recruited from the same area in Beijing. Linear regression analysis was performed, using health, financial status, and family support as independent variables. Results showed that the regression model explained 38 percent of the variance in life satisfaction in the total sample, 34 percent and 43 percent of the variance respectively in the clinical and community samples. Life satisfaction was significantly predicted by health and financial status among community elderly and by health, financial status, as well as family support among outpatient elderly. Findings suggest that the socio-cultural context has exerted important impacts on the Chinese elderly's life satisfaction.

In east-west cultural contexts medical decision-making by elderly Japanese-American oncology patients is made complex by cultural differences from mainstream service providers. Cultural, religious and practical factors thought to contribute to delays in obtaining informed consent for treatment in oncology from mentally competent Japanese-American elders in Hawai'i are identified in this study of health care professionals at Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu (n = 50). Circumstances under which Japanese-American elders sign informed consent documents without understanding them are also examined. Recommendations are offered by the participants and researchers for improvements to the informed consent process. Implications of the findings and recommendations are discussed for Health Care Practice with Japanese-American and other ethnic elderly patients in mainstream health care organizations.

The aim of this study was to identify the attitudes of older Egyptians towards receiving nursing care at home and to identify the characteristics that allow differentiating between various types of these attitudes. The number of older persons in Egypt requiring nursing care is increasing. Care was traditionally provided by the family, but the social network is changing in bigger cities. Beside geriatric homes, older Egyptians can refer to private helpers and a small number of home care services. Structured guideline interviews were performed with 33 Egyptians above 60 years of age. Participants were chosen by purposeful sampling. Twelve of them received home care. Interviews were analyzed with qualitative content analysis according to Mayring. Participants could be classified under three main categories of care seeking types: (1) insufficient income, (2) sufficient income and family dependent decision about care, (3) sufficient income and independent decision about care. Variations under these categories were due to differences in the social network and the perceived self-help abilities. Examples for the influence of factors which explained variations were not identified in every category to the same extent. Some types of care seeking that exist in reality may be missing in this study. Findings suggest the hypothesis that care seeking of older Egyptians is related to their social status. Those with insufficient income seem to reject home care whereas independent personalities with sufficient income may be the main winners of this offer.

This study explores nostalgia among older adults in present-day Ghana by investigating how they subjectively compare themselves to older adults in the past. A purposive sample of 23 older adults provided data through semi-structured face-to-face interviews and data analysis employed a general inductive approach, with a focus on content and thematic analytic procedures. The findings show an overall theme of ‘the good old days’, how participants compare themselves negatively to older adults in their past, believing and feeling that older adults in the past enjoyed better health and longevity and had more care and respect. While participants generally praise the past for its perceived virtue and vitality, they scold the present for a perceived degeneration. Findings of this study support theoretical descriptions and empirical research conclusions on nostalgia as: an emotionally invested remembrance of the past; a yearning to relive the past or reconnect with people and things past, or to return to places in the past; and an evocation of the beauty of the past in contrast to the ugliness of the present. Consonant with this, the study shows how participants evoke the beauty of the past, where, comparatively, older adults enjoyed a life of dignity. In what is characteristic of nostalgic evocations, participants reclaim the lost beautiful past, where people ate natural – healthy – foods, engaged in physically active work, and were stronger into late adulthood. Again, consonant with nostalgia as a discourse of critique of the present with the past as yardstick, participants express disenchantment with the present for a perceived steady degradation of the values of care, respect, and obedience to elders, which made older adults in past generations a privileged class. To this end, we may conclude that nostalgia not only speaks to the present from the past, it seeks to recreate the past in the future.

This paper draws on a study of social aging among women in urban New Zealand for a comparative analysis of grandmother as a marker of being socially old. The paper features the views and perspectives of the women themselves and examines ethnic group identification as a source of variation. Data collected in a series of indepth interviews with women representing four ethnic groups indicate similar patterns regarding prevalence of transition to the role and recognition of grandmother as one of the roles treated by others as primary in definition of old, but differences regarding how the role is treated in self definitions. In the women's own definitions, being a grandmother is treated as one among a configuration of markers of old age and its significance rests on how the role connects with the other markers. Six other markers were implicated: a shorter future, social generativity, social status, seniority, social renewal, and social integration. Ethnic variation in how the grandmother role connects is evident in respect to all six and relatively strong in the case of social status, seniority, social renewal, and social integration. Indicated for further study is the influence of ethnic culture and also the interaction of ethnicity with other sources of variation such as age in years and marital status.

Serbia is a demographically old nation, with 17.4 % of its residents being aged 65 years and older in 2011. The previous two decades of turbulent history have significantly affected the demographic picture of this country, and their ramifications remain visible in Serbia's economic, political, cultural, and health spheres. Major demographic forces behind population aging in Serbia can be attributed to lower fertility rates, migrations, and declining mortality (reflecting improvements in overall health leading to a longer life expectancy). In Serbia, low fertility and migrations appear to play major roles, although the relative contribution of recent migrations cannot be measured with accuracy. Patterns of demographic aging vary considerably across different geographic, socioeconomic, and cultural settings. The common denominator throughout present day Serbia is extensive political and economic transition. One would expect that, given sufficient time, this process will result in improved population health, and yet, at this stage outcomes of major health care reform in Serbia are somewhat perplexing. For the second consecutive year, Serbia’s health care system has been ranked at the very bottom of the scale among 34 European countries. It is then no surprise that the elderly represent particularly vulnerable population segment. This paper discusses some of the issues relevant to these demographic patterns of aging and aged care in contemporary Serbia, focusing on the period after 2000.

Bài báo này tập trung vào sự hỗ trợ mà các con gái cư trú bên ngoài cung cấp cho cha mẹ già của họ ở nông thôn Tây Tạng, Trung Quốc, nhằm thách thức quan niệm rằng sự hiện đại hóa nhanh chóng không thể tránh khỏi việc đe dọa các hệ thống chăm sóc dựa vào gia đình cho người cao tuổi. Các tác giả thảo luận về những thay đổi xã hội và kinh tế liên quan đến hiện đại hóa đã tạo ra những cơ hội mới cho cha mẹ gửi con gái ra ngoài khỏi hộ gia đình của họ, theo cách có thể mang lại lợi ích cho họ khi về già. Bằng cách đầu tư vào giáo dục của con gái để cô có thể có việc làm có lương, hoặc bằng cách giúp con gái thiết lập một doanh nghiệp nhỏ để kiếm sống độc lập, các tác giả đã chỉ ra rằng một số con gái cư trú bên ngoài đại diện cho một hình thức vốn xã hội mới mà cha mẹ có thể dựa vào để nhận hỗ trợ xã hội. Những cô con gái có thu nhập và tự do khỏi nghĩa vụ với gia đình bất di bất dịch hiện đang cung cấp cho cha mẹ già của họ (1) quyền lực chống lại những đứa trẻ cư trú cùng không đối xử tốt với họ, (2) những nơi trú ẩn tạm thời khỏi sự đối xử tồi tệ trong gia đình, (3) dịch vụ chăm sóc và hỗ trợ tài chính khi họ cần nhập viện, và (4) nguồn tài chính độc lập khỏi hộ gia đình mà họ có thể sử dụng để theo đuổi các hoạt động thích hợp theo độ tuổi như hành hương. Các tác giả kết luận rằng hình thức vốn xã hội mới này được gắn liền với các con gái cư trú bên ngoài đang có tác động tích cực đến cuộc sống của người cao tuổi ở nông thôn Tây Tạng.