Ordinary Everyday Activities Research Articles

Between Realism and Idealization. Contemporary Controversies Surrounding the Ways of Fulfilling the Didactic Functions of Images of Saints from a Theological and Moral Perspective

The purpose of this article is to provoke discussion on the worship of images depicting saints. However, it is not about defending this worship, since this issue has already been definitively settled by the Church. Instead, the article concerns a new problem – the controversies that arose in connection with some modern depictions of saints, mainly in painting. The mildest of these controversies involve paintings, often made on the basis of surviving photographs, showing saints during their ordinary everyday activities, e.g. while working or resting. A much sharper polarization of opinions occurs when the painting reveals the ethos of the saint with all realism, that is including also their imperfections, and even sin. Can such a saint be an object of veneration which, after all, inherently entails following them as role models? Is such veneration not an acceptance and promotion of flaws that contradict biblical morality? Can such images serve a didactic function? Instead, wouldn’t a certain idealization be advisable – the portrayal of a saint as someone perfect, excluding their flaws and weaknesses? The author takes a position on these controversies by formulating criteria for “good” images based on the theological and moral principles of their worship and an analysis of their functions.

Volition to risk taking in the ordinary activities of daily life of older people living at home alone. A study using explicitation interviews

Older people (OP) living at home alone face several health risks. Health professionals are increasingly called upon to contribute to the prevention of these risks. In this article we to develop an analytical framework to look at volition to risk taking in the ordinary everyday activities of OP living at home alone. We conducted a qualitative study to explore how OP think about risk throughout their actions, how risk influences them in their activities and the place they give to risk in the ordinary activities of their daily lives. Twenty participants (twelve women, eight men) living alone at home in French-speaking Switzerland were interviewed using the specific explicitation interview method. Focusing on micro-action sequences, the participants were asked to convey their subjective experiences while performing these actions. Occupational and activity choices seem to always have underlying motivations rooted in a set of values, such as maintaining a sense of control over one’s own existence, competence (perceived self-efficacy), and identity congruence. Risk taking was closely associated with OP’s intimate volition to maintain their own personal trajectory. The way in which OP understand the risks they face in their daily lives and what they do to cope with these risks serves as an analytical tool for studying ageing. We consider that a more detailed understanding of which risks affect or benefit OP, and how, makes a valuable contribution to studies of ageing and to studies into the nature and role of risk in everyday life.

A LIFE MORE ORDINARY: CREATING DEMENTIA-FRIENDLY SPACES THROUGH THE PERFORMATIVE ARTS

The concept of dementia friendly communities emerged from the ‘age-friendly’ movement that has been supported by the WHO for some time. This recognizes that like most older people, those with dementia desire to remain in their own homes, and their own communities, for as long as possible. But it also recognizes the significant socio-environmental challenges this can present. Transforming attitudes to dementia, supporting family and friend caregivers, and promoting meaningful participation for all in the community are essential to the success of any such movement. This paper draws on a qualitative evaluation of one such programme that has sought to develop innovative dementia friendly spaces through the arts and arts performance. Focusing on the Dukes Theatre in Lancaster, UK and its partner theatres and cinemas, I discuss how these venues have, over a three year period, developed spaces in which both people with dementia and their family carers can continue to meaningfully participate in ordinary everyday activities that can be crucial to maintaining the sense of belonging and partnership that is often lost as the dementia journey progresses. Whilst efforts to implement change at the city and community level are laudable, I suggest that it is perhaps at the micro-scale of individual places that we are most likely to successfully stimulate change.

Mandarin ethnomethodology or mutual interchange?

Contributors to the 2016 Special Issue of Discourse Studies on the ‘Epistemics of Epistemics’ (EoE) claim that studies of epistemics in interaction (how participants display orientations to their own and others’ states of knowledge) have lost the ‘radical’ character of groundbreaking work in ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA). We suggest that the critiques and related writings are a kind of mandarin EM, lacking an adequate definition of ‘radical’, other than to invoke brief and by now familiar statements from Garfinkel and Sacks regarding the pursuit of ‘ordinary everyday activities’ and the avoidance of ‘formal analysis’. Drawing on Egon Bittner’s work, we further suggest that the EoE group shares properties and problems common to social movements claiming the mantle of radicalism. Because of their particular focus on CA and Harvey Sacks’ early work, we also demonstrate that Sacks was not, as asserted, preoccupied with the singularity of occasions. Rather, from his earliest available work (the 1964 lectures), Sacks pursued trans-situational aspects of sequential organization, and documented these not only through single cases but also through the comparative analysis of specimen collections. We conclude by considering how EM and CA are compatible endeavors, both in their engagement with traditional research topics – or what Garfinkel called ‘asymmetric alternates’ – and in their appreciation of generic features implicated in the assembly of social actions and social worlds. This implies a relationship of mutual interchange between EM and CA.

Improving outcomes in heart failure: a personal perspective.

When I was a medical student and junior doctor in the early 1980s I saw many patients on the wards in hospital with this terrible illness for which we could do little. When the heart fails as a pump one of the main manifestations is accumulation of fluid due to retention of sodium and water by the kidneys which also malfunction as a result of reduced blood flow and other mechanisms. Fluid accumulation in the legs and lungs leads to swelling (peripheral oedema) and breathlessness. Reduced blood flow to the muscles also causes intense fatigue. Back in these early days diuretics which caused the kidneys to produce more urine and relieve fluid intention) and digoxin, a 200 year old plant-extract thought to stimulate contraction of the failing heart, were the only two treatments we had, except for the rare, young, patient who was lucky enough to get a transplant. Otherwise, I knew that around 7 out of 10 of those men and women I saw would be dead within a year. Even worse the last months of their lives were characterized by disabling symptoms and exercise intolerance making even ordinary everyday activities a struggle, if not impossible. Often patients were also readmitted to hospital because of acute worsening of their symptoms. Around the time I graduated from medical school USA and European investigators such as Jay Cohn, Gary Francis, Peter Harris, and Philip Pool-Wilson were beginning to unravel the pathophysiology—the disease mechanisms—of heart failure and starting to explore the possibility of finding new treatments for this condition.1,2 The picture that emerged was remarkable. Although the primary problem was of course weakness and failing of the contraction of the heart …

‘That is the dad and this is the mum’

Based on a corpus of everyday adult-child conversations in Swedish, the study uses interactional linguistics to explore how sexual identity is managed by adults and young children. The five children are studied longitudinally, from about one and a half to three and a half years of age. The management of sexual identity is shown overwhelmingly to concern the management of heterosexuality, the conversations showing a strongly heteronormative view. Two areas are identified through which adults and children recreate heteronormativity. The first of these is romantic attraction, through comments and discussions concerning attractiveness, weddings and marriage, kissing, and handholding. The second area involves heterosexual couples and families, such as a speaker talking about a neighbouring couple or family, or speakers creating a 'play family' using stuffed animals. The analysis shows how the normalising of the heterosexual nuclear family starts early in life for the children involved, and how it is part of ordinary everyday activities. The analysis also indicates a gender difference, in that talk concerning romantic attraction is mainly found in conversations with girls, and the construction of pretend families during make believe and playing only exists in conversations with girls.

Determining patient activity levels in chronic kidney disease

Aim. This study used the human activity profile to investigate the levels of activity in people with chronic kidney disease in far North Queensland, Australia.Background. People with chronic kidney disease experience reduced levels of fitness and a reduced capacity to engage in regular activity because of a number of illness related factors. Consequently there is an impact on the ability to perform routine activities of daily life. Increasingly the promotion of activity is viewed as an integral component of rehabilitation programs in renal units.Design and methods. A descriptive cross sectional design was used to assess differences in current levels of activity for groups of persons with chronic kidney disease who differed in their renal history and type of renal therapy. Both descriptive data (such as activity levels and breathlessness) as measured by a researcher‐administered questionnaire and biochemistry data were collected on 112 people with chronic kidney disease. The study was conducted in 2006.Results. Participants in this study were less active than the general population with women, older or indigenous patients significantly less active. Participants with diabetic nephropathy were significantly the least active. A significant difference between mean activity scores was found for type of renal replacement therapy, with participants receiving haemodialysis being the least active. Additionally, lower levels of albumin were significantly correlated with fewer activities.Conclusion. The human activity profile is a useful indicator of the broad range of physical activities undertaken by people with chronic kidney disease, and that there is a reduced ability to undertake ordinary everyday activities. The broad scope of the human activity profile may make it a valuable assessment tool.Relevance to clinical practice. It is particularly important for nurses to understand the impact of chronic illness on the ability to undertake basic activities of daily life, and the necessity to introduce routine assessment of everyday activities for all renal patients is warranted.

Eye movements and the control of actions in everyday life

The patterns of eye movement that accompany static activities such as reading have been studied since the early 1900s, but it is only since head-mounted eye trackers became available in the 1980s that it has been possible to study active tasks such as walking, driving, playing ball games and ordinary everyday activities like food preparation. This review examines the ways that vision contributes to the organization of such activities, and in particular how eye movements are used to locate the information needed by the motor system in the execution of each act. Major conclusions are that the eyes are proactive, typically seeking out the information required in the second before each act commences, although occasional 'look ahead' fixations are made to establish the locations of objects for use further into the future. Gaze often moves on before the last act is complete, indicating the presence of an information buffer. Each task has a characteristic but flexible pattern of eye movements that accompanies it, and this pattern is similar between individuals. The eyes rarely visit objects that are irrelevant to the action, and the conspicuity of objects (in terms of low-level image statistics) is much less important than their role in the task. Gaze control may involve movements of eyes, head and trunk, and these are coordinated in a way that allows for both flexibility of movement and stability of gaze. During the learning of a new activity, the eyes first provide feedback on the motor performance, but as this is perfected they provide feed-forward direction, seeking out the next object to be acted upon.

The role of occupational therapy in home care

Occupational therapy is a health discipline and rehabilitation profession based on the premise that "occupations," such as ordinary everyday activities (work, play, self-care), have a restorative or normalizing effect. The goal of occupational therapy is to assist patients in achieving a maximum level of independent living by developing the capacities that remain after disease, accident, or deformity.

Mathematics and the Real World

AbstractIt has been suggested that perception of mathematics as an academic exercise divorced from reality increases as children progress through school. The present study explores this suggestion with respect to primary school pupils; 144 pupils aged between 6 and 10 years, at four primary schools, were interviewed and asked for examples of everyday uses for familiar mathematical operations. Approximately 60% of suggestions were related to ordinary everyday activities and 30% related to demonstrating or practising mathematical procedures. Patterns of response were not related to age, gender or school. The results suggest that for many children, separation of school mathematics from everyday life starts early in primary school if not before.

Reporting therapeutic discourse in a therapeutic community.

Research in nurses' communications has concentrated on nurse to patient interactions. Those few studies which focus on nurse to nurse communications seem to be generated by a pragmatic and normative concern with effective information sharing. In this paper, which describes one aspect of a larger case study of a hospital-based therapeutic community, the description and analysis of nurses' reports flows not from a normative model of professional practice, but rather an exploration of how professional practice is articulated as discourse in nurses' written accounts. Foucault's ideas about therapeutic discourse inform the theoretical framework of the research. Ethnomethodological concerns with the importance of documentary analysis provide the methodological rationale for examining nurses' 24-hour report documents, as official discourse, reflecting therapeutic practice in this setting. A content analysis of nurses' reports, collected over a period of 4 months, demonstrated the importance of domesticity and ordinary everyday activities in nurses' accounts of hospital life. Disruption to the 'life as usual' domesticity in the community seemed to be associated with admission to and discharge from the hospital when interpersonal and interactional changes between patients occur. It is suggested that nurses in general hospital wards and more orthodox psychiatric settings might usefully consider the impact of admissions and discharges on the group of patients they manage, and make this a discursive focus of their work.

Factors determining the activity of ischemic heart disease

Transient regional myocardial ischemia appears to underlie symptoms such as angina pectoris and represents a key pathophysiologic step, since it is an objective marker of disease activity and is capable of causing disabling symptoms and damage to left ventricular myocardium. A study of the characteristics of transient ischemia in and out of the hospital has shown that symptoms are an inconsistent underestimation of these events. Ischemia is generally prolonged, mostly asymptomatic, and usually accompanied by a regional decrease in myocardial perfusion. Studies out of the hospital have also shown that these episodes are frequently triggered by a wide range of ordinary everyday activities. These new features of transient ischemia are worth noting when searching for relevant causes that are present during everyday life and when trying to choose more rational therapy. More detailed studies of patient activity have shown that different levels of mental arousal are the most common triggering mechanism causing ischemia out of the hospital. In addition, the occurrence of transient ischemia during everyday life displays a circadian rhythm, with an increase and peak occurrence between 6:00 A.M. and 12 noon each day. The day-to-day variability of ischemia is marked, indicating functional disturbances of coronary stenoses against a background of a severe reduction in cross-sectional area. The examination of proximal stenoses has shown that (1) the reduction in cross-sectional area is usually underestimated by conventional angiography; (2) pressure gradients across coronary stenoses are common and, with reduced poststenotic blood pressure, can jeopardize perfusion; (3) disturbances of vessel caliber and antegrade flow can accompany many of the ordinary everyday activities known to trigger ischemia detected in Holter tapes studied out of the hospital; and (4) there is clear-cut evidence of endothelial dysfunction in these patients, with reversal of the normal dilator response to acetylcholine and paradoxical constriction of stenoses. This evidence of endothelial dysfunction in humans could be central to the problems of atheromatous narrowing, thrombus, and disturbed vasomotion.

Activity of transient myocardial ischemia out of hospital in coronary artery disease and implications for management

The management of patients with angina pectoris is based largely on the severity of symptoms, coronary anatomy and left ventricular function. The outcome for these patients is highly variable and depends largely on the degree of ischemic damage to the left ventricular myocardium. Recent work suggests that exercise-induced myocardial ischemia with or without angina is associated with a poor prognosis. Ambulatory monitoring of the electrocardiogram has revealed that most patients have frequent and prolonged episodes of transient ischemia out of hospital. These episodes are often asymptomatic and associated with ordinary everyday activities. In addition, ambulatory monitoring has demonstrated that transient ischemia during daily life has a circadian variation with exacerbations and peak density of ischemia in the first 4 to 6 waking hours of the day. Further studies have demonstrated that regional decreases in coronary blood flow occur during these ischemic episodes and have the same features seen out of hospital on continuous monitoring. These newly noted characteristics of transient ischemia raise a number of practical questions for treatment. Is it necessary to relieve all ischemic activity quite apart from that which occurs with chest pain? Does present use of antianginal medication neglect the early morning increases in transient ischemia that occur, and are different dosage regimens required to treat ischemia adequately? Does suppression of all ischemic activity further protect myocardium and improve prognosis for the patient?