Occupations of Older Adults: A Cross Cultural Description

Abstract

key words: aging, activities of daily living, leisure ABSTRACT Participation in everyday occupations influences people's health and well-being. To enable individuals to do the activities they want and need to do is the main concern of occupational therapy practice. Many daily occupations are universal, but they also depend on culture. The development of the Activity Card Sort in eight countries has offered the opportunity to describe occupations across cultures. In the developmental process of culturally relevant versions of the Activity Card Sort by occupational therapists in each country, the instrument versions included samples of older adults (N = 468). These data are used in the current description with the aim of identifying central activities across cultures and central activities for Asian and Western cultures. Ten activities were identified as being central across cultures (i.e., more than half of the older adults in all eight countries performed them). They were the following: shopping in a store, doing grocery shopping, doing dishes, doing laundry, reading books or magazines, sitting and thinking, watching television, listening to radio or music, visiting with friends and relatives, and talking on the telephone. Further, 16 additional activities central to Asian culture and 18 activities central to Western culture were identified. The identification of central activities deepens knowledge of activities with cultural significance. This knowledge is needed in clinical practice and multicultural research. This description provides a starting point for further exploration of everyday occupations among older adults.

Psychometric Properties of the Arab Heritage Activity Card Sort

“…However, given its significant clinical utility and ease of administration, it has been translated to several languages, such as Hebrew (Katz and Hatman‐Maeir, ), Chinese (Chan et al, ) and Arabic (Hamed et al, ). Moreover, it has been adapted to address activities unique to Israel (Katz et al, ), Hong Kong (Chan et al, ), Australia (Packer et al, ), Korea (Lee, 2009 unpublished work), Puerto Rico (Orellano et al, ) and Jordan (Hamed et al, ) to account for cultural differences (Eriksson et al, ). There is also a paediatric version in English (Mandich et al, ); a preschool version in both English (Berg and LaVesser, ) and Spanish (Stoffel and Berg, ); and a modified pilot version (ACSm) in English for monitoring recovery after stem cell transplants (Lyons et al, ).In addition, the ACS has been used to identify cross‐cultural activities that are common between Asian as well as Western societies (e.g., laundry, shopping), and those unique to the Asian (e.g., preserving food) or Western countries (e.g., computer use).…”

“…There is also a paediatric version in English (Mandich et al, ); a preschool version in both English (Berg and LaVesser, ) and Spanish (Stoffel and Berg, ); and a modified pilot version (ACSm) in English for monitoring recovery after stem cell transplants (Lyons et al, ).In addition, the ACS has been used to identify cross‐cultural activities that are common between Asian as well as Western societies (e.g., laundry, shopping), and those unique to the Asian (e.g., preserving food) or Western countries (e.g., computer use). This identification indicates the ability of the ACS not only to assess participation in globally common activities but also for activities unique to a specific culture or even sub‐cultures within one country (Eriksson et al, ).…”

“…Given that the ACS is a valid and reliable tool that assesses participation in several areas of ADL, IADL and social activities (Baum and Edwards, ); is easy to administer to patients regardless of their level of literacy; and is flexible in accommodating new culturally‐relevant items (Eriksson et al, ), the ACS was a good tool to be used by OT of Arabic origins especially for patients with long‐term illness such as MS. MS is a chronic neurological illness that imposes various physical, cognitive and affective symptoms (e.g., fatigue, poor memory and depression) that can significantly hinder participation in daily activities (e.g., mobility, self‐care skills and work). MS was chosen in this study, given the unpredictable course of the illness in most of its cases (i.e., relapsing‐remitting type), that may significantly affect participation in several activities.…”

Development of an Activity Card Sort for Australian adults aged 18–64 years

“…The decision to incorporate all activities within broader activity categories in the final list are potential strengths of the tool, allowing the ACS-Aus (18-64) to assess engagement over a wide age range and identify activities for many life stages (Doney & Packer, 2008;Katz et al, 2003). A person's life stage is often influenced by significant events such as getting married, starting a family, travelling or retiring, and these events occur at varying ages for all people (Law, 2002) thereby determining their choice and level of activity engagement (Eriksson et al, 2011). Therefore, it is important for client-centred practice that the final list of activities should be comprehensive.…”

The Development of Adolescent and Young Adult Participation Sort – Taiwanese Version

“…Daily activities people choose depend on their culture. Eriksson and colleagues () explored the daily activities of older adults across eight countries in Asian and Western cultures, including Australia, Israel, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Korea, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the United States. These authors concluded that there are activities people do across cultures as well as activities central to the culture and that identifying culturally specific activities improves occupational therapy practice with cultural sensitivity.…”