Background: For older adults, difficulties in bathing and toileting are often the most prevalent in the index of Activities of daily living (ADL). This study aims to examine how environmental factors are associated with difficulty of bathing and toileting among older adults in rural China. Method: The data are from the 2014 Thousand-Village Survey (TVS), a national survey of Chinese rural residents of old age. The sample consists of 10,689 subjects, 55 years or older, from 536 villages across all provinces of China. Logistic regressions were applied to examine how difficulty in bathing and toileting was related to environmental factors such as geographic location, neighbourhood amenity, and related facility of bathing and toileting. Results: Older adults living in the southern regions of China had lesser difficulty in bathing and toileting than those living in Northern China, controlling on other confounders. Better neighbourhood conditions also reduced the likelihood of having such disabilities. Persons who bathed indoors without shower facilities, in public facility, and outdoors were significantly more likely to have bathing disability than those who showered indoors. Rural older adults who used pedestal pan and indoor bucket for toileting were more likely to have toileting disability than those who used indoor squatting facilities. Conclusion: Environmental barriers were associated with functional disability among older adults in rural China, but these individuals may also change their environment to adapt to their functioning. Our findings suggest it is imperative to promote the use of showering facilities and pedestal pans for toileting in rural China
Background For older adults, difficulties in bathing and toileting are often the most prevalent in the index of Activities of daily living (ADL). This study aims to examine how environmental factors are associated with difficulty of bathing and toileting among older adults in rural China. Method The data are from the 2014 Thousand-Village Survey (TVS), a national survey of Chinese rural residents of old age. The sample consists of 10,689 subjects, 55 years or older, from 536 villages across all provinces of China. Logistic regressions were applied to examine how difficulty of bathing and toileting was related to environmental factors such as geographic location, neighbourhood amenity, and related facilities of bathing and toileting. Results Older adults living in the Southern regions of China had lesser difficulty in bathing and toileting than those living in Northern China, controlling for other confounders. Better neighbourhood conditions also reduced the likelihood of having such disabilities. Persons who bathed indoors without showering facilities, in public facilities, and outdoors were significantly more likely to have bathing disability than those who showered indoors with facility. Rural older adults who used pedestal pans and indoor buckets for toileting were more likely to have toileting disability than those who used indoor squatting facilities. Conclusion Environmental barriers were associated with functional disability among older adults in rural China, but the disabled individuals may change their environments to adapt to their functional capabilities. Our findings suggest that it is imperative to promote the use of showering facilities and pedestal pans for toileting in rural China.
Memes and meme factories are increasingly the new fronts for ageism online. To address the lack of studies exploring memetic expressions of ageism, this study utilized multimodal discourse analysis to analyze 98 image macros from five meme factories in Singapore. Expressions of ageism were consistently found in how the meme visually and discursively portrayed older adults, and three ageist themes of infantilization, barbarization, and fetishization were identified. Memes that infantilized older adults often portrayed them as immature and illiterate despite their age and emphasized their dependence on others. Memes that barbarized older adults portrayed them as being uncultured or having inferior cultural tastes, while memes that fetishized older adults positioned them as an object of sexual fetish. The intersections of ageism with sexism, classism, and racism were also noted. Practical implications of these findings were discussed, and several recommendations were offered for meme factories to reduce visual ageism.
Bathing is a major type of disability among older adults. While studies on bathing difficulties have recently started to go beyond the limitations of the human body to examine bathroom amenities; researchers have rarely considered the environment beyond the bathroom. This study explored the regional disparities in bathing disability among older adults in China. Using data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey from 1998 to 2018, random-effects logistic regressions were performed to examine how bathing difficulties differed across regions among older adults in China. We found that older adults residing in the northern regions were significantly more likely to experience bathing disability compared to those from the South after controlling for confounding variables. Women and the oldest-old were also the most likely to experience bathing disabilities. Within the Northern regions itself, individuals from the Northeast stood out for having the highest likelihood of experiencing bathing disability. Interestingly, this regional disparity only existed for bathing disability and not the other Activities of Daily Living (ADL) items. It is concluded that the large regional disparity could be due to both climate differences and uneven economic development across the different regions in China. As bathing is a highly environment-dependent activity, this study highlights the potential for policy interventions to reduce the prevalence of bathing disability among older adults through improving the bathing environment. Additionally, we aim to put forth the notion that disability research should move towards analyses of specific disability items rather than an undifferentiated ADL index.
No abstract
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.