Background: Fostering social participation for active and healthy ageing among older adults is an urgent issue in a changing society that requires new approaches from occupational therapists as well as from society at large.

Aim: To explore possibilities to foster social participation for older adults in society from the perspective of stakeholders.

Material and methods: A qualitative design was applied. 18 key informants, engaged in supporting older adults in their organisational roles as either professionals or volunteers, participated in five different focus groups discussions.

Results: The results involved two overarching themes that reflects different perspectives on key informants’ possibilities to foster social participation for older adults. The first theme describes how they direct their attention towards their roles within the organisations to foster social participation in their own context. The second theme describes the broader societal perspectives that they address to establish a common ground for collaboration and knowledge-sharing among different stakeholders.

Conclusions: The findings emphasise how addressing common challenges and developing collaboration are essential to foster older adults’ social participation. It is therefore necessary to involve policy-makers and decision-makers. Occupational therapists and researchers should consider the value of occupational justice to drive collective and social approaches.

Changing demographics with an increased proportion of older adults indicate the need to develop new health-promoting interventions where the potential of digitization is considered. The aim was to explore and create an understanding of how social online meetings are experienced by older adults. Interviews with older adults generated data that were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. The participants were interviewed after participating in a digital health promotion group initiative provided in a municipality context. A core conceptual category and three subcategories reflected an intertwined process of discovering facets of social participation where internal reflections on personal values and needs were nurtured by an external driven process of becoming part of a group in an online context. Occupational therapists and other health and social care professionals need to consider the various facets of social participation when supporting older adults active and healthy aging.

Social participation is positively associated with older adults’ health. Health-care services, therefore, need to empower older adults to adapt to the social changes that accompany aging. This systematic review, with a metasynthesis of qualitative studies, aimed to describe and develop an understanding of home-dwelling older adults’ (65 yrs+) experiences of using strategies to maintain and foster their social participation. The main search was performed in March 2022 using the PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and AMED databases and included peer-reviewed articles published between 2012 and 2022. A total of 35 full-text articles from 15 different countries were included and assessed for quality by the assessment tool for qualitative studies provided by the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP). The metasynthesis resulted in the main theme: strategically creating routines that foster social participation and two main categories: inward-looking strategies for social participation and outward-looking strategies for social participation. Each main category contained three subcategories. The findings suggest that for perceiving social participation, it is important for older adults to create routines with patterns of activities and to be able to engage in these activities. The findings further reflect that older adults use earlier experiences of social participation to facilitate the making of routines. This indicates that health-care interventions supporting older adults’ social participation must be applied early and with a health-promotive focus. Conclusively, researchers need to develop interventions that support older adults in healthy activity patterns by raising awareness of how to use inward-looking and outward-looking strategies to create routines for social participation. The findings further suggest that older adults’ possibilities for social participation could be supported by designing accessible venues that facilitate spontaneous meetings and encourage older adults’ own choices and initiatives for social participation.

Ageing in place is an imminent concern for both older couples and communities. Identifying ways to support ageing in place is required to meet the needs and challenges of older couples and social services systems. Through focus groups with a total of 46 participants and a constant comparative methodology, this study aimed to explore and describe the experiences and reasoning of spousal carers, healthcare professionals, and stakeholders regarding possibilities for older couples to age in place. The findings consisted of one main category, ‘Facilitating ageing in place is a win-win situation with challenges’ and four interrelated categories, ‘Focus on older couples – building relationships and providing adequate services’, ‘Engaged civil society as a source of care and social inclusion,’ ‘Motivated professionals with competence and time,’ and ‘Services working together for a sustainable society,’ that present possibilities and challenges for ageing in place. This study suggests that facilitating ageing in place is possible but involves a complex series of challenges that can be linked to different contexts ranging from individuals and couples to civil society, services provided, organisational systems, and existing resources. All these aspects need to be considered and balanced to achieve a situation that contributes to older couples' possibilities to age in place as well as to a sustainable society.

Background

Social participation concerns the possibility of engaging in activities in interaction with others or society at large and contributes to the health and well-being of older adults. In contrast, a lack of social participation is associated with loneliness. It is, therefore, important to understand what strategies older adults use to maintain social participation.

Aim

To explore and describe older adults’ experiences of maintaining social participation.

Materials and methods

Nine older adults, aged 69–92 years, participated in interviews that were analysed through qualitative content analysis.

Results

The overall findings reflect how older adults create opportunities for social participation by developing strategies and striving to adapt to changing situations, emphasizing how maintaining social participation is an active process. Preserving social participation requires motivation and an effort to take initiative to cultivate social relations, maintain community bonds, engage in social events and activities and stay connected with society.

Conclusions and significance

These results may extend our understanding of strategies that older adults use, as well as the challenges they face when striving to adapt to new circumstances. This study may have implications for the practice of how to support older adults’ social participation.

This article describes the process of using PAR and discusses the strengths and challenges of adopting it as a methodology. With a pilot project “the rehabilitation journey” as a showcase, we share experiences of how we co-created knowledge and illustrate the actions taken and participants’ involvement in the process. This pilot project aimed to explore how ICT solutions can create new ways to deliver home-based rehabilitation that meet the needs of the organization, rehabilitation professionals, and older persons. Our experience is that using PAR as a research method had several strengths. Our project stemmed from demographic and epidemiological trends in society viewed as a “real life problem” experienced on different levels in the organization of home-based rehabilitation. At the same time, PAR was a challenging research method to use, as it was time-consuming and required the commitment and contribution over time of the different participants involved. There were also specific challenges that had to be considered regarding routines and regulations, as the pilot project was conducted in a health care context. This article aspires to offer methodological guidelines by using a six-step method to illustrate a PAR process. We propose that these guidelines can act as a tool to guide researchers in carrying out PAR.

Background: This paper is in line with the on-going discussion of a theoretical re-orientation towards acknowledging the socio-cultural dimensions of occupation.

Aim: To define enacted togetherness as a concept and share our understandings of how this concept can add to the understanding of occupation as socio-culturally situated.

Method and material: The concept enacted togetherness emerged from empirical findings of a larger research project with older adults living with late-life depression. Informed by a transactional understanding of occupation and a narrative approach, the concept emerged as a contextually situated process holding qualities and potential as a source of meaning-making.

Findings: Enacted togetherness as described herein has a clear association to occupation in terms of doing activities together. We reflect on enacted togetherness as a process of meaning-making, connecting people and places through unfolding stories; as an arena where togetherness and belonging can be created; and as a space for interpretation, providing opportunities to negotiate issues of meaning that can lead to possibilities for change.

Conclusion: The concept of enacted togetherness can contribute to the ongoing discussion of a theoretical reorientation towards understanding socio-cultural dimensions of occupation.

Significance: Enacted togetherness is a concept that can contribute to occupational therapy and occupational science as it adds to an understanding of the qualities and potentials inherent in engagement in occupations with others.

The aim of this study was to explore and describe the physiotherapy treatment experiences of persons with persistent musculoskeletal pain. Eleven participants with persistent musculoskeletal pain in the back, neck, or shoulders were included in the study. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews and were analysed with qualitative content analysis. The analysis resulted in the theme "Towards acceptance and management of pain", comprising four sub-themes: 1) Establishing and maintaining a therapeutic alliance; 2) Being active, taking initiative and facing challenges; 3) Appreciating guidance, incentive and having a sounding board; and 4) Acquired knowledge and new body awareness change behaviours. The theme and sub-themes describe how the participants used increased knowledge, awareness, movements and exercises learned from the physiotherapy treatment to develop strategies for managing pain and the process of acceptance. A trusting relationship and continual dialogue with the physiotherapist was considered to be important. The participants were actively involved in the process as exercises, activities and other treatment modalities were individualized. This was rewarding but also challenging and required effort on their part. The physiotherapist's initiatives and actions were an important incentive and means of support.

Aims

The aim is to describe healthcare professionals’ perspectives on how they understand and promote older couples’ participation in everyday life when using residential respite care.

Design and Methods

Eighteen healthcare professionals with varying degrees of competence and from one residential respite care facility participated in four focus group interviews. Data were analysed through qualitative latent content analysis.

Findings

The findings revealed a broad, multifaceted view of participation and ways in which participation in everyday life is promoted by these professionals. Trustworthy relationships between professionals, spousal caregivers and clients were implicated. Promoting participation also necessitated that clients have access to meaningful activities. In addition, participation entailed an environment that supported various needs.

Conclusion

Promoting participation for older couples that are using respite care involves multifaceted perspectives that consider social–relational aspects including both the client and their spouse. Furthermore, attention is needed to the meaning a change of context between home and the respite care facility has on relationships, environments and activities in everyday life. Such an approach could benefit the couples’ shared everyday life situation and in a wider perspective, also influence their health and well‐being when ageing in place together.

Although numerous studies have examined provider–caregiver interactions and their influence on care outcomes, few represent the perspective of the provider or specifically consider occupational therapy practitioners. The aim of this article is to explore the perspectives of occupational therapists regarding interactions with older adult caregivers in geriatric practice settings. The study was conducted using a constructivist grounded theory approach based on data obtained from repeated focus group sessions and subsequent individual reflections. Occupational therapy practitioners interact with older adult caregivers in ways that reflect negotiations about who holds expertise and whose priorities are most relevant in care situations. These interactions are influenced by health care contexts that foreground the needs of the care recipient. A deeper understanding of caregiving as an occupation via a transactional perspective may serve to illuminate complex care situations and optimize therapist–caregiver interactions.