Abstract
AbstractThis chapter describes the work of the Frail Elderly Support Research Group (FRESH) in relation to the capability approach as a theoretical framework. The FRESH research group works with people who are at risk of developing frailty, as well as those who are already frail or very frail. In this chapter, FRESH aims to utilise the capability approach as a theoretical framework for research with and for frail older people, and to focus on the older people’s opportunities to realise their goals in relation to contextual factors that may influence them. A broad understanding of the concept of frailty in general is also presented. The capability approach makes a fundamental contribution to the understanding of the process of becoming frail, and how it may influence people as they age, because it focuses on people’s real opportunities, what it is possible to achieve and what people have reason to value, in relation to the resources that they have at hand. This chapter will hopefully encourage future researchers to consider evaluating the capability approach and implementing it in their own research.
Highlights
Today’s highly specialised health and social care is poorly adapted to the comprehensive needs of frail older people (SBU, 2014)
We describe the key concepts of the capability approach as applied to our research, and outline a suggestion for how research can use the capability approach to assess and minimise inequalities as experienced by frail older people
We study the freedom needed by frail older people to decide what, when and how to do things, and we explore whether or not involvement in research on ageing and health is a valuable goal from the perspective of the frail older people themselves
Summary
Today’s highly specialised health and social care is poorly adapted to the comprehensive needs of frail older people (SBU, 2014). People over 65 in need of home care or other social services face the risk of being given no, or limited, choice with regards to when to get out of bed in the morning, what and when to eat, or when to go outdoors Such injustices can be captured by the multidimensional capability approach, which seeks to identify constraints in both choice and control based on a person’s age, frailty, morbidity and/or disabilities. Based on mutual respect and the sharing of ideas, we as a research group apply person-centredness to our research with and for frail older people This means that we place a high value on human interaction, and every person involved in the research process is regarded as capable of contributing with their experience, knowledge and expertise. The research group has experience of both quantitative and qualitative methods and extensive experience of conducting interprofessional and multidimensional intervention studies (RCT) with frail older people in collaboration with hospitals, primary care, and
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