The relationships that care home staff have with their co-workers are a key influence on the way they feel about their work and how they perform in their roles. This has a direct influence on quality of care and life as experienced by residents. However, care home providers face a challenge to promote co-worker relationships because: (a) the care home workforce often lack human resource oversight; (b) registered managers (and nurses), who often lack leadership training, are tasked with managing the working relationships of staff, the majority of whom are care workers of different ages, ethnicity and cultural beliefs; and (c) most (care workers) do not have any formal qualifications and are not routinely provided with the communication skills to facilitate collaborative working in dynamic and pressured climates. In this forum article, we consider these challenges and their implications for collaborative co-worker relationships, before highlighting opportunities for research, policy and practice. An important starting point is to focus on developing the leadership skills of staff at all levels and provide care workers with the skills they require to manage their working relationships and support them in their everyday work for the benefit of residents.

Successful ageing continues to be a key theme in contemporary ageing discourses, where good physical and cognitive health in older age is an individualised responsibility. This paper explores how Australian aged care stakeholder discourse contributes to constructions of self-responsibility for brain health and dementia prevention in older persons. Brain health advice messages about diet, exercise and ‘brain fitness’ by aged care stakeholders are argued to construct a moral framework of ‘brainwork practices’ to prevent or delay dementia. This study performed discourse analysis of a sample of public online aged care stakeholder documents (N = 170) to reveal three key concepts in discursive constructions of dementia. The first concept characterises dementia as a disastrous force to be opposed; the second is a biomedical concept of dementia as preventable (or able to be delayed) in a ‘successful’ older age, while the third reflects neurocultural ideas that fetishise perfect memory as the best defence against cognitive decline and dementia. Identifying this matrix of responsibilising ‘brainwork practices’ messages by aged care stakeholders makes a contribution within social gerontology to revealing neoliberal conceptions of older age as an outcome of lifestyle and consumer choices, where dementia is constructed as ‘failed’ or ‘unsuccessful’ ageing.

Older adults who age at home independently are often celebrated as having anticipated and planned for their care needs in the later stages of life, whereas those who receive assistance from home support services are often stigmatised as dependent and characterised as a ‘drain on the system’. However, this thematic analysis of interview data from 12 home care clients in two Canadian provinces offers evidence that counters the assumption that home care clients are passive recipients of care. Extending Corbin and Strauss' theorisation of how individuals manage chronic conditions alongside Dorothy Smiths' conception of work, we explore how home care clients ‘work’ to receive care as they age in place. Specifically, home care clients not only engage in daily life work, illness work and biographical work, but also advocate for themselves and their workers, co-ordinate and negotiate with members of their caring convoys and networks, and adapt in various ways to navigate personal, relational, structural and policy-level challenges. We suggest that work done by older adults who are ageing in place be addressed, acknowledged and incorporated into care planning and operational policy development to challenge both the stigma of dependency and neoliberal narratives of self-sufficiency.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted concern about the wellbeing of older people, however, there have also been accounts of increased sense of community in response to the disruption of established routines. To explore how older people experienced lockdown in Aotearoa/New Zealand, we analysed 635 written comments on the 2020 wave of the Health, Work and Retirement longitudinal survey of people aged 55–85 years. Using narrative genre analysis, we discuss two narratives of lockdown: a narrative of lockdown as ‘idyllic’ and a ‘dystopian’ narrative of distrust. Using the idyllic narrative, people described pleasant activities and linked these stories to earlier times when community life was less time-pressured and people were more connected to one another. The dystopian narrative was used to describe politicians and the media as untrustworthy and to depict new vulnerabilities created by the rules of lockdown. These narrative genres provide different positions for older people. In the idyllic narrative, older people are treasured and supported by younger community members, whereas in the dystopian narrative older people feel abandoned and manipulated. These genres draw on possible late-life futures that are familiar to older people: either treasured or discarded. Identifying these narrative genres reveals the different vulnerabilities older people experience. This information can be used to support older people to experience security and to flourish in uncertain times.

The aim of this paper is to review the social constructionist view of age and ageing that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It begins with a general consideration of social constructionism as an epistemological framing of the world, before turning to its use in social gerontology. It considers two distinct social constructionist approaches treating later life as a social reality: (a) as a structural consequence of the rise of the modern state and its organisation of the labour market and (b) as a consequence of shifting cultural and social representations. Arguing that the earlier more structuralist accounts have gradually become overshadowed by concerns over age as identity, socially constructivist approaches now place as much emphasis upon the social representation of age as on its social-structural organisation. The paper then reviews the costs and benefits of social constructionism in general and its becoming a key part in the study of ageing. Its benefits arise from drawing attention to the salience of the cultural and the social in fashioning age and ageing and thereby advancing the sociology of later life. At the same time, social constructionist approaches to old age risk neglecting an other personal and social reality arising from corporeal decline and fear of the body-to-come. The paper concludes by noting how, whether approaching ageing and old age as natural kinds or as human kinds, adopting biological or sociological methodologies, all such methods privilege the externality of age – whether as a social or a biological fact. What is not captured by either is the problematic internality of age. What might be called the subjectivity of age will remain a topic for cultural representation, beyond the methods of both biological and social science.

This paper considers how a diagnosis of dementia affects people's planning for future social care needs and associated costs. It addresses the gap in knowledge about how people recently diagnosed with dementia, and their family carers, engage with planning for social care needs that are uncertain in timing and scale. The paper also considers people's attitudes to planning for care that they may need to pay for privately, and what facilitates or hinders acting on such plans. We conducted and undertook thematic qualitative analysis of 39 in-depth interviews with 27 people newly diagnosed with dementia and/or their carers over a two-year period. Topics included current care and support, planning and co-ordinating care, paying for care, and expectations and planning for the future. The research took place in England. Our findings indicate that whilst people recognised they would have future care needs, with associated financial implications, this knowledge did not necessarily translate into actively planning for care or its cost. A key reason that recognition did not translate into action was uncertainty, manifested in three areas: the timescales and trajectory of their dementia and thus need for care; the potential for care needs to change and so negate care planning efforts; and uncertainty over their own capabilities to plan for and access paid-for care, given the perceived complexity of social care and associated financial arrangements. The paper discusses how anticipated regret may affect decision-making and contributes to debates about appropriate professional support for older self-funders with dementia. It suggests the task for those involved in the care of people with dementia is to identify the points and places in the care system where worries about future self-funded care can be addressed, and carers and the people they care for can be prompted and supported to act.

Previous literature attempted to gain insight into financial abuse involving people with dementia by analysing court cases, but these studies were limited in sample size or scope. This study collected 214 court rulings directly related to the financial decisions of people with dementia to identify characteristics of the financial abuse victim, perpetrators and the types of assets. The models of bystander intervention and routine activity theory were used as conceptual models to guide analysis regarding the role of bank staff as well as the court's decision in cases of financial abuse. The majority of financial abuse perpetrators were family members (73.8%), as opposed to outsiders (19.2%). Transfer of real estate was the most common legal issue, and land was the most common financial asset involved. Difficult intra-family relationships seem to pose a great risk of financial abuse involving people with dementia since adult children were found to be the most likely perpetrators (52.7%) but also plaintiffs accusing financial abuse (57.6%). In accordance with the bystander intervention model, bank staff were more likely to be suspicious of financial abuse when an outsider was regarded as the perpetrator. In accordance with the routine activity theory model, the court was more likely to acknowledge the case as an invalid financial decision when an outsider was regarded as the perpetrator in financial abuse cases. Since people with dementia suffer from greater losses due to their family members, future policies should establish guidelines for front-line bank staff to identify warning signs to reduce the risk of financial abuse involving people with dementia, not only to prevent fraud by outsiders but also exploitation by family members.

As the population ages and the prevalence of dementia increases, caring for a relative living at home with dementia has become a reality for many families worldwide. Studies have shown that families are confronted with diverse difficulties as they try to address the challenges involved in providing care. By understanding how they manage daily life, formal service providers become better equipped to meet the diverse needs of these families. Learning how families live with memory loss and cognitive changes calls for an understanding of the shared context surrounding the person, including the collective of people, and their connections. With the research method of ethnographic case study, we followed eight families living at home with dementia for two years. All participants had been placed on a waiting list for a specialised dementia day care programme. The analysis presented here is based on three cases which reflect widely different experiences and situations. We describe how these families dealt with their daily living at home, if and how they made use of the formal support available and what approaches they found helpful for improving their lives. The results show how the persons living with dementia and their care-givers drew on the collective of their backgrounds, surroundings and available support. With diverse arrangements, families tried to find ways to make their daily lives work out. But constant re-arrangement was necessary. This knowledge could be a central learning point for formal service to build on. While systematic or routine procedures in service provision can be helpful, time and space must be provided for professionals to understand families' different practices, so that they can provide family-centred support.

Laboratory-based experiments show ageing negatively impacts navigation abilities, yet a paucity of research explores lived experience. This exploratory study examined young-old adults' experiences of declining navigation abilities during 16 semi-structured telephone interviews. Findings reveal: (a) ‘Behavioural drivers’ that underpinned the participants' experiences and actions when engaging with their environments, (b) ‘Avoidance’ and (c) ‘Active’ strategies that were adopted by the participants. Declining cognitive function appeared to have a negative impact on participants' perceived abilities and confidence to navigate unfamiliar outdoor environments, which in turn influenced the strategies they chose to adopt. Future psychosocial interventions should draw on neuropsychological theory to ensure retention of navigation skills and confidence for as long as possible.

A growing number of organisations in residential care for older people are working towards safe and inclusive environments for LGBT residents. In the Netherlands, these efforts are supported by an LGBT inclusion scheme called ‘Pink Passkey’. Drawing on critical organisational diversity studies, the paper understands inclusion as ‘accomplished’ in interactions across difference, and as always inherently partial (i.e. exclusion-producing). Qualitative methods are used to study the implementation process of the Pink Passkey in two nursing homes during one year. In sum, the paper contributes evidence of positive change associated with the use of the Pink Passkey as an inclusion scheme characterised by a long-term, open-ended and comprehensive approach. Compared to fixed-term projects and stand-alone measures described in previous LGBT ageing literature, an inclusion scheme helps to gain sustained attention to sexual and gender diversity (despite gaps in the implementation process), to normalise it more and to overcome opposition (though this does not disappear). The inclusion accomplished is, indeed, partial: bisexual, transgender and other gender non-conforming identities are less represented than gay and lesbian identities. Also, there is an emphasis on residents' agency to disclose LGBT identities and preferences, which excludes involuntary same-sex sexual expressions caused by disinhibited behaviour. The paper ends by suggesting disinhibited behaviour in older LGBT adults as an issue of interest to the wider literature on LGBT ageing, given the increasing prevalence of dementia and Parkinson's disease. Here, the role of care professionals who are able to understand and respond to bodily cues that echo struggles with otherness merits further consideration.