Livet på gamla dar'
en kvalitativ studie kring äldre personers livskvalitet.
Life qualityLife courseElderly careSocial sciencesSamhällsvetenskaperCare and help to handicappedHandikappadeVård och rehabiliteringSocial Sciences
The aim with our paper has been to get a picture of which factors one of the heterogeneous group that we've chosen of old persons, 75-90 years, in Scania, in south Sweden, have experienced to be of importance for their life quality today and what they wish to preserve of their actual life style when they eventually shall use the elderly care. Also how their individual life course has influenced their experience of the quality of life.We found this subject interesting as the group of old people in the society is constantly increasing and when the group becomes bigger, then greater demands will be put on the elderly care. We have proceeded from a standpoint that all people are unique individuals and that people become what they are from their life histories and from the choices they have made during their life. We have used the life course theory that says that one should see the individual in his/her wholeness and the whole life history of a person in order to understand him/her. We have also studied earlier research concerning the different determinants of the life quality. We have applied the qualitative method and done interviews with ten old persons, eight women and two men.We found that health was of great importance for the life quality, that social togetherness was also considered by many of the interview persons to be of importance and that the relatives were very important for almost all the interview persons. Other things that were taken up as important that influenced the life quality were to have a good place to live in and a good economy. Even food and meals were taken up as important for the life quality. Our foremost conclusion became however that the experienced quality of life among elderly people in our interview group relates to and depends on their individual life course.We consider that within the elderly care and even within the gerontology research, too little is focused on the old persons as unique individuals with specific demands and desires and too much on the old persons as an altogether homogeneous group. All individuals are unique, young as old, and this is what we think ought to be emphasized, not the least within the elderly care. That makes the knowledge of the individual life course of the elderly care recipients valuable and necessary if enable to provide them with well care.