scholarly journals Independent living of an elderly person with non-family, community support, and consequent prevention of lonely death: A case of Soma Idobata-Nagaya after the 2011 Fukushima disaster

Author(s):  
Naomi Ito ◽  
Yuri Kinoshita ◽  
Tomohiro Morita ◽  
Sho Fujioka ◽  
Masaharu Tsubokura

The construction of apartment buildings after the disaster and the way of living there fostered the social capital of the original area. Community formation made it possible for elderly people living alone to respond to emergencies and prevent lonely death. It can be proposed to the future super-aging society.

CJEM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew S. Leyenaar ◽  
Brent McLeod ◽  
Aaron Jones ◽  
Audrey-Anne Brousseau ◽  
Eric Mercier ◽  
...  

Abstract Objectives The aim for this study was to provide information about how community paramedicine home visit programs best “navigate” their role delivering preventative care to frequent 9-1-1 users by describing demographic and clinical characteristics of their patients and comparing them to existing community care populations. Methods Our study used secondary data from standardized assessment instruments used in the delivery of home care, community support services, and community paramedicine home visit programs in Ontario. Identical assessment items from each instrument enabled comparisons of demographic, clinical, and social characteristics of community-dwelling older adults using descriptive statistics and z-tests. Results Data were analyzed for 29,938 home care clients, 13,782 community support services clients, and 136 community paramedicine patients. Differences were observed in proportions of individuals living alone between community paramedicine patients versus home care clients and community support clients (47.8%, 33.8%, and 59.9% respectively). We found higher proportions of community paramedicine patients with multiple chronic disease (87%, compared to 63% and 42%) and mental health-related conditions (43.4%, compared to 26.2% and 18.8% for depression, as an example). Conclusion When using existing community care populations as a reference group, it appears that patients seen in community paramedicine home visit programs are a distinct sub-group of the community-dwelling older adult population with more complex comorbidities, possibly exacerbated by mental illness and social isolation from living alone. Community paramedicine programs may serve as a sentinel support opportunity for patients whose health conditions are not being addressed through timely access to other existing care providers. Protocol registration ISRCTN 58273216.


2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (8) ◽  
pp. 1474-1482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacy Torres

AbstractObjectivesWhile older adults living alone face challenges to maintaining social ties, elders in urban areas also have unique opportunities for daily socializing that can buffer against loneliness.MethodDrawing on 5 years of ethnographic fieldwork among elders in New York City, this study presents empirical insights into the development of supplementary neighborhood-based networks of support for older people living alone and vulnerable to isolation.ResultsThis study finds that elders who lived alone, without close kin, engaged in daily gossip about other older people they encountered as regulars in local eateries. Despite its negative reputation, gossip helped them connect and access less conventional social support close to home. The majority resisted formal organizations, such as churches or senior centers, and thus their interactions in public venues served as an important source of social involvement. In line with Gluckman’s argument (1963), gossip betrayed emotional intimacy and caretaking that connected people who could have fallen off the social radar.DiscussionHigher rates of divorce and lifelong singlehood, coupled with increased longevity, will compel greater numbers of older adults to construct alternative support networks. My findings suggest that more will draw these connections from unconventional venues such as neighborhood public places.


Author(s):  
Karen Grimmer ◽  
John Moss ◽  
Julie Falco

Objective: To describe the perceptions of people taking on a new or expanded caring role for an elderly patient recently hospitalised with a new or intensified health problem. Design: Observational study collecting qualitative data monthly for six months following patients’ discharge from hospital and attempted return to independent living in the community. Setting: Four South Australian acute hospitals (one metropolitan, three country). Subjects: 34 unpaid carers were nominated by 100 patients. 24 carers participated (17 elderly spouses, 3 younger family members, 4 neighbours and/ or friends). Results: The study highlighted carers’ perceptions of being unprepared for their new tasks, and their frustrations at the long-term and frequently significant changes to their lives brought about by assuming a caring role. Many carers felt their role had been imposed upon them without real choice, and that their own physical and emotional fitness for their new role had not been considered during discharge planning. Carers claimed to have been provided with little information about how to care for the patient, particularly when community services were seldom provided in the first week after discharge. Stresses developed in many of the carer-patient relationships, and patient and carer morale was often low for months post-discharge. Discussion: Carers indicated that their tasks could have been made easier by more timely, targeted education about their patient’s condition and their role in managing it. They would have liked greater inclusion in discharge planning processes whilst the patient was in hospital, and more timely and appropriate provision of post-discharge services that were patient- and carer-focused, and which addressed their ability to live independently in the community. Conclusion: Discharge planning systems should take greater account of the motivation and needs of carers, especially when this role is new or becoming expanded, and of the barriers they face in undertaking their role.


2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 107
Author(s):  
Ma. Teresa Schoof Aguirre ◽  
Eduardo Manzanares Medina ◽  
Miriam Grimaldo Muchotrigo

<p><em><strong>Español</strong></em></p><p>El objetivo de la presente investigación fue determinar la relación entre la red de soporte social y el apoyo comunitario en los miembros de una organización de personas desplazadas por violencia política. Para tal fin, el estudio descriptivo correlacional incluyó a 80 participantes (49 mujeres y 31 hombres) con una edad promedio de 45.79 años (DE = 11.41), quienes residían en una provincia de Lima y provenían, en su mayoría, del departamento de Ayacucho. Se les administró el Cuestionario de Red Social (SNQ) y el Cuestionario de Apoyo Comunitario Percibido (PCSQ). Entre los principales resultados, se encontró que el componente Integración y Participación Comunitaria del PCSQ correlaciona con dos funciones y dos categorías del SNQ. Se presenta asociación positiva estadísticamente significativa con la función guía cognitiva (rs = .32), la función socialización (rs = .24) y la categoría satisfacción (rs = .24) y asociación negativa y estadísticamente significativa con la categoría heterogeneidad (rs = -.23). Se discuten las implicancias de los presentes hallazgos.</p><p> </p><p><em><strong>English</strong></em></p><p>The present study’s aim was to determine the relationship between the social support network and community support among members of an organization of persons displaced by political violence. The correlational-descriptive research included 80 individuals (49 females and 31 males) with a mean age of 45.79 years old (SD = 11.41), who reside in a province of Lima and came, mostly, from the department of Ayacucho. Participants completed the Social Network Questionnaire (SNQ), as well as the Perceived Community Support Questionnaire (PCSQ). Among the main findings, we found that the Integration component and Community Participation from the PCSQ correlate with two functions and two categories from the SNQ. Specifically there is a statistically significant positive association with the Cognitive Guide function (rs = .32), the Socialization function (rs = .24) and the Satisfaction category (rs = .24); and a statistically significant negative association with the Heterogeneity category (rs = -.23). Implications of the results obtained will be discussed in the present paper.</p>


Author(s):  
María Guadalupe Neder

A través del presente comentario se intentará hacer una breve síntesis del razonamiento de la justicia federal mendocina en una ejemplar decisión que recayó sobre una persona adulta mayor. El tribunal interviniente teniendo en cuenta la elevada edad del amparista, su condición de jubilado y su estado de incertidumbre como consecuencia de la actitud desplegada por la obra social, lo considero merecedor de una tutela preventiva y resolvió mantener su afiliación a la obra social pese haber adquirido su condición de jubilado.   Through this comment, an attempt will be made to summarize the reasoning of the federal justice system in Mendoza in an exemplary decision that fell on an elderly person. The intervening court, taking into account the high age of the amparo, his retirement status and his state of uncertainty as a consequence of the attitude displayed by the social work, considered him deserving of preventive protection and decided to maintain his affiliation to the social work despite having acquired his retirement status.


Author(s):  
Nitin Agarwal ◽  
Huan Liu ◽  
Jianping Zhang

In Golbeck and Hendler (2006), authors consider those social friendship networking sites where users explicitly provide trust ratings to other members. However, for large social friendship networks it is infeasible to assign trust ratings to each and every member so they propose an inferring mechanism which would assign binary trust ratings (trustworthy/non-trustworthy) to those who have not been assigned one. They demonstrate the use of these trust values in e-mail ?ltering application domain and report encouraging results. Authors also assume three crucial properties of trust for their approach to work: transitivity, asymmetry, and personalization. These trust scores are often transitive, meaning, if Alice trusts Bob and Bob trusts Charles then Alice can trust Charles. Asymmetry says that for two people involved in a relationship, trust is not necessarily identical in both directions. This is contrary to what was proposed in Yu and Singh (2003). They assume symmetric trust values in the social friendship network. Social networks allow us to share experiences, thoughts, opinions, and ideas. Members of these networks, in return experience a sense of community, a feeling of belonging, a bonding that members matter to one another and their needs will be met through being together. Individuals expand their social networks, convene groups of like-minded individuals and nurture discussions. In recent years, computers and the World Wide Web technologies have pushed social networks to a whole new level. It has made possible for individuals to connect with each other beyond geographical barriers in a “flat” world. The widespread awareness and pervasive usability of the social networks can be partially attributed to Web 2.0. Representative interaction Web services of social networks are social friendship networks, the blogosphere, social and collaborative annotation (aka “folksonomies”), and media sharing. In this work, we brie?y introduce each of these with focus on social friendship networks and the blogosphere. We analyze and compare their varied characteristics, research issues, state-of-the-art approaches, and challenges these social networking services have posed in community formation, evolution and dynamics, emerging reputable experts and in?uential members of the community, information diffusion in social networks, community clustering into meaningful groups, collaboration recommendation, mining “collective wisdom” or “open source intelligence” from the exorbitantly available user-generated contents. We present a comparative study and put forth subtle yet essential differences of research in friendship networks and Blogosphere, and shed light on their potential research directions and on cross-pollination of the two fertile domains of ever expanding social networks on the Web.


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