The life situation and functional capacity of the elderly with locomotor disability in Sweden and Poland according to a model by Lawton

Abstract

A quadripartite concept, the Good Life for older people, was developed by the American psychologist M. P. Lawton and forms the theoretical framework of this study. Ninety Swedish and 93 Polish subjects, aged > or = 60 years who had reported locomotor disturbances in selected samples from the two countries, took part in the study. Interviews were performed using the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Multilevel Assessment Instrument (PGCMAI) and functional testing was done using the Standardized Practical Equipment (SPE). The Polish elderly scored lower in most domains of the PGCMAI, which meant a worse life situation according to the Good Life model. On the SPE, scoring was lower in the Polish group, mainly on items related to balance and mobility. There was a logic convergent validity between the PGCMAI and the SPE in the whole group. The somewhat more complicated life situation for the Polish elderly has to be further analysed.

Psychometric testing of the Swedish version of the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Multilevel Assessment Instrument

“…Our domain indices follow better the values for Cronbach's alpha by Lawton than the new factors, although the tendency is the same. The results on testing Lawton's eight original domains with Cronbach's alpha are similar to 183 persons with locomotor disability taking part in the Polish/Swedish study on elderly people by Jaracz et al, 16 with a range of 0.24-0.88, where the Swedish sample was comprised of 90 elderly people from the Jönköping area in our study.…”

“…In the early 1990s, a Swedish version of the instrument was developed. This version has been used in several studies, including a survey of elderly people with locomotor disabilities in a Swedish county, elderly people with leg ulcers, and a comparison of a Swedish and a Polish population 13–16 . The original PGCMAI and the Swedish version of the instrument are further described in the present paper.…”

The Swedish version of the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Multilevel Assessment Instrument, by age and gender in an old‐age Swedish population, especially related to locomotor disability

“…The H70 and SWEOLD, for example, involved population aged above 70 and 77 years of age, respectively (8,12). The Swedish material in the present study is partly the same as that used in a Swedish-Polish study by Jaracz et al (22), in which the data were collected from Jö nkö ping County, Sweden. In the present study, data from Vä rmland County, Sweden, were added (18).…”

“…Subindices discriminate them further. The Swedish version has been used in a study of aged with leg ulcers (21) and in a study comparing a Swedish and a Polish population of old people (22). The SPE (20) was used along with the PGCMAI as a form of validation (23).…”

Quality of life among the elderly with locomotor disabilities in Sweden and Poland in the 1990s

“…The Lawton model and the results from this investigation have been described elsewhere by Jaracz et al [23]. Minhage et al [24] have further tested by factor analysis the Swedish edition of the PGC MAI, in which the Swedish sample from Jönköping in this study has been used along with another Swedish sample.…”