A experiência do envelhecer com deficiência física: uma abordagem fenomenológica

Abstract

Introduction: Increasing the survival of people with disabilities over the last few years makes them live long enough to reach old age. The low implementation of specific public policies for this segment causes a gap between what is needed and what is available, generating more distress and uncertainties about the future. Deficiency and aging are two complex avenues of human experience that interconnect in this study. Objective: To understand the experience of aging from the perspective of elderly people with physical disabilities. Method: considering the adequacy of the comprehensive approach to this research, the theoretical and conceptual framework of the Schütz Social Phenomenology was adopted. The participants were selected in the register of members of the Association of Disabled People of Mato Grosso. We selected respondents who met the following criteria: people with congenital or acquired physical disability, of both sexes and aged 60 years or over, living in a community. Persons with disabilities acquired after the age of 40 were excluded in order to include only persons with a long experience of physical disability prior to old age. Results: the study made possible the understanding of the following concrete categories of lived: the perpetuation of stigma; the progress of physical decline and the persistence of barriers to social inclusion; formal and informal needs and networks of social support; the capacity for work and autonomy as synonymous with resilience; the disbelief and uncertainties of future projects. These categories were interrelated and accommodated to the environment conditions and the singularities in different trajectories. Final considerations: the experience of aging with physical disability is not only related to the dysfunctional body or age itself, but also to recurrent psychosocial and cultural aspects. It is believed that the results can subsidize families, society and, above all, public policies in the development of more socially acceptable health actions aimed at elderly people with physical disabilities.