0000000000358396
AUTHOR
Astrid Bergland
Everyday uses of standardized test information in a geriatric setting : a qualitative study exploring occupational therapist and physiotherapist test administrators' justifications
Published version of an article in the journal: BMC Health Services Research. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-72 Open Access Background: Health professionals are required to collect data from standardized tests when assessing older patients' functional ability. Such data provide quantifiable documentation on health outcomes. Little is known, however, about how physiotherapists and occupational therapists who administer standardized tests use test information in their daily clinical work. This article aims to investigate how test administrators in a geriatric setting justify the everyday use of standardized test information. Methods. Qualitative s…
Health capital in everyday life of the oldest old living in their own homes
ABSTRACTAs more people experience old age as a time of growth and productivity, more research is needed that explores how they master everyday life. This paper reports on a qualitative study that explored how ten older women age 90 years or more experience and cope with the challenges of everyday life with a salutogenic perspective. The findings suggest that health resources such as positive expectation, reflection and adaptation, function and active contribution, relations and home, contribute to the health capital of women. These health resources were of importance for the women's experience of comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness in daily life. Health capital is a meaningf…
Cognitive screening tests as experienced by older hospitalised patients: a qualitative study
Older people admitted to geriatric wards in hospitals are often screened for cognitive impairments. The validity and diagnostic concerns of cognitive screening tests have been subjected to comprehensive research. However, the qualitative knowledge available on how older patients themselves experience these screening tests is limited. The aim of this study is to explore the cognitive screening test experience from the older patients' perspective. Drawing on fieldwork, qualitative interviews were performed with 18 older patients who had completed cognitive screening tests while hospitalised. Data from the interviews were analysed according to a phenomenological approach. The results were supp…
Individualizing Standardized Tests
Author's version of an article in the journal: Qualitative Health Research. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1049732313499073 In assessing geriatric patients' functional status, health care professionals use a number of standardized tests. These tests have defined administration procedures that restrict communication and interaction with patients. In this article, we explore the experiences of occupational therapists and physiotherapists acting as standardized test administrators. Drawing on fieldwork, interviews with physiotherapists and occupational therapists, and observations of test situations on acute geriatric wards, we suggest that the test situation g…
Everyday life in old age: past, present, and future
Aims: To explore how older Norwegian women living at home experience ageing, and how their everyday life has been influenced by their encounters with the challenges of life. Methods: A qualitative design, interviewing ten women age 90 or older, was employed. Results: The overall theme of the findings is how everyday life in old age is influenced by past, present and future. The subcategories focus on (a) changes in daily life, (b) giving an account of life as it is, (c) various perceptions of experienced loss, and finally, (d) thoughts about the future. Conclusions: Older women need the opportunity to reflect upon their past, present and future existence to have a good everyday life in old …