‘Old but not that old’: Finnish community-dwelling people aged 90+ negotiating their autonomy

Abstract

Autonomy is a pervasive concept in Western lifestyles today. However, people in the fourth age are assumed not to be autonomous but dependent on other people. The data of this study consisted of interviews with Finnish community-dwelling --year-old people. The study aim was to examine how these people see their own autonomy in their everyday lives. The analysis was based on membership categorisation analysis. Our respondents considered their autonomy through three distinct themes. Functional ability was considered in terms of being physically capable of managing daily tasks. Independence in decision making was based on material and financial self-sufficiency and on the respondents' supposition that they were capable of making decisions due to an absence of memory disorders. Additionally, autonomy was considered as contesting norms of age-appropriateness. Among respondents, chronological age seemed to have been replaced by functional and cognitive ability as a definer of categorisations; age-others became ability-others. Our study revealed that the perceptions of autonomy also included gendered features as they were linked with differing gendered ideals, roles and life domains of women and men. The results highlight the internal diversity among the oldest old and challenge the third/fourth age division. Instead, they suggest the existence of a certain 'grey area' within old age, and urge an analysis on the subtle meaning making involved in older people's constructions of age-categorisations.

Ruptures of affiliation: social isolation in assisted living for older people

“…Interviewees missed the company of old friends, as well as contact with family members. Pirhonen et al (2016) found that Finnish community-dwelling nonagenarians feared their own transfer into a nursing institution, sometimes even more than dying. Thus, negative representations may isolate residents from their previous friends and same-age peers who are still community-dwellers.…”

Ten forms of recognition and misrecognition in long-term care for older people

“…This side is always in us but it is highlighted in old age. Our youth-oriented culture tends to see old people, as well as people with disabilities, as some kind of others (Pirhonen et al 2015). One probably cannot find a long-term care facility in Finland that has not written the word "individual" in its business idea.…”

“…Based on prior studies it is true that home is the preferred living place for a majority of old people (Jolanki 2009). But this is partly because old people are afraid of institutional long-term care (Pirhonen et al 2015). Old people seem to fear that their autonomy and dignity will be compromised when becoming a resident in long-term care, where "the elderly are dragged from place A to place B" as a 90-year-old lady put it (Pirhonen et al 2015: 9).…”

“…In public discussion, John usually vanishes into the category of "old age" or into the crowd of old people. In our (neo)liberal world John easily represents otherness, becoming an age-other and an abilityother (Pirhonen et al 2015). Representations and generalizations of societal subgroups are unavoidable in public discussion, but nothing prevents speaking about older people in a more positive way.…”

“…We have also heard residents referring to cognitively disadvantaged peers as "zombies" or "the geriatrics" in sheltered homes. It is natural that old people with diminishing abilities hang on to what they still have (King et al 2012) and make strict distinctions to those worse off (Pirhonen et al 2015). However, old age is not a reason to behave badly.…”