Vision impairment is prevalent and it is strongly associated with depressive symptoms in older adults. This study aimed to investigate the mediating roles of functional limitations and social support on the relationship between vision impairment and depressive symptoms in older adults. This study used data from a probability-based sample of 1,093 adults aged 60 and older in Shanghai, China. Structural equation models were used to examine the structural relationships among sets of variables simultaneously, including vision impairment, activities of daily living ADLs, instrumental ADLs (IADLs), friends support, family support, relatives support and depressive symptoms. The bootstrapping method and the program PRODCLIN were used to test the indirect effects of these variables. This study found that vision impairment was directly associated with a higher level of depressive symptoms, and the association was partially mediated by functional limitations (IADLs) and social support (friends support). The study demonstrates that improving social support from friends and enhancing social participation for visually impaired older adults can reduce depressive symptoms. More importantly, this study contributes to the knowledge of mediating mechanisms between vision impairment and depressive symptoms.

Faced with the dramatic pace of population ageing, the Shanghai municipal government launched a pilot programme in 2013 designed to address this and to strengthen ageing-in-place arrangements by providing basic in-home medical services for residents above the age of 80. Yet after a two-year trial run, the ‘Home-Based Medical Care Scheme for the Oldest-Old’ (HBMCSOO) policy remained significantly under-utilised despite the increasing demand for medical services. Our multi-disciplinary research team of social workers and anthropologists identified two key factors impeding the implementation of home-based medical care services: (a) the distortion of policy implementation and (b) the inadequate professionalisation of community-based elder-care workers. Based on our evaluation of the pilot programme, the Shanghai municipal government made several practical adjustments to improve the subsequent city-wide policy implemented in 2016. While these changes mostly focused on minor adjustments to improve in-home medical services for the oldest-old, they represent an encouraging first step towards our call for a holistic integrated care system whose design and delivery takes into account local political and social contexts, including existing institutional infrastructure and cultural expectations about care-giving responsibilities. The challenges of implementing Shanghai's HBMCSOO policy ultimately provide instructive lessons on best practices for integrating medical and social services in order to improve ageing-in-place measures in diverse local settings around the world.

This study adopted mixed-methods research to explore the effects of reminiscing about nostalgic smells on the physiological and psychological responses of older people in long-term care facilities. A total of 60 participants were randomly divided into two groups and each participant was either interviewed regarding their reminiscence about nostalgic smells (experimental group) or were engaged in daily conversation (control group). The results indicated that anxiety and depression symptoms were more effectively relieved in the experimental group than in the control group. Moreover, most of the nostalgic smells recalled by the experimental group were associated with naturally occurring smells. Regarding heart rate variability, the normalised low-frequency of the experimental group decreased significantly. The results verified the utility of using reminiscence about olfactory memories in reminiscence therapy as this can calm anxiety and lessen depression, which can be very important for older adults living in long-term care facilities.

For about 20 years, Belgium has successfully implemented working-time reduction policies for the older workforce. However, the impact of such policies on health has not been explored yet. Using longitudinal data from Waves 5 and 6 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (N = 1,498), the paper assesses whether working-time reduction in late career is associated with a change in self-perceived health, depression (EURO-D) and quality of life (CASP-12). For that purpose, ordered logit and ordinary least squares regressions are performed, using four different models for defining working-time reductions. Results show that people reducing working time with or without additional social benefits tend to have a poorer self-perceived health at follow-up compared with people keeping the same or increasing working time. By comparison, people moving to retirement are more likely to present a better self-perceived health, depression level and quality of life compared to people increasing or keeping the same working-time level. Although, introducing an interaction effect, the paper shows that the change in quality of life for respondents reducing working hours in addition to social benefits tends to be less negative for those who wished to retire early at baseline than for those who did not.

One of the major aspects of successful ageing is active engagement in later life. Retirement and widowhood are two significant life transitions that may largely influence leisure engagement patterns among older adults. Limited findings exist regarding the impact of life transitions on leisure activity engagement due to the scarcity of longitudinal data with repeated measurement of older individuals’ leisure engagement. This study longitudinally examined changes in leisure activity engagement as influenced by retirement and widowhood using five waves of national panel data from the Health and Retirement Study and its supplementary Consumption and Activities Mail Survey. Multi-level modelling was conducted with retirement and widowhood status as time-varying variables. Socio-economic status, depressive symptoms, cognitive function, self-rated health and functional limitations were also included as time-varying and time-invariant covariates. Findings show that engagement in mental, physical, social and household activities significantly decreased during an eight-year period. Moreover, transition from working to retired status was associated with increased engagement in mental, social and household activities but decreased engagement in physical activities among men only. Transition from married to widowhood status was associated with decreased engagement in household activities among women only. Encouraging active leisure engagement among individuals who experience either or both life transitions may help maintain their health after transition.

Within research on ageing in neighbourhoods, older adults are often positioned as impacted by neighbourhood features; their impact on neighbourhoods is less often considered. Drawing on a study exploring how person and place transact to shape older adults’ social connectedness, inclusion and engagement in neighbourhoods, this paper explores how older adults take action in efforts to create neighbourhoods that meet individual and collective needs and wants. We drew on ethnographic and community-based participatory approaches and employed qualitative and geospatial methods with 14 older adults in two neighbourhoods. Analysis identified three themes that described the ways that older adults enact agency at the neighbourhood level: being present and inviting casual social interaction, helping others and taking community action. The participants appeared to contribute to a collective sense of connectedness and creation of social spaces doing everyday neighbourhood activities and interacting with others. Shared territories in which others were present seemed to support such interactions. Participants also helped others in a variety of ways, often relating to gaps in services and support, becoming neighbourhood-based supports for other seniors. Finally, participants contributed to change at the community level, such as engaging politically, patronising local businesses and making improvements in public places. Study findings suggest the potential benefits of collaborating with older adults to create and maintain liveable neighbourhoods.

In the Swedish news-press, loneliness among older people is presented as a severe problem that needs to be solved. The issue of who is responsible for reducing loneliness and how this responsibility is designated is, however, rarely discussed. In this study, we have analysed how responsibility is designated and constructed in articles from the Swedish news-press. Focus has been on identifying responsibility in discourses proceeding from the concept of subject positions. This concept has enabled analysis on how responsibility is negotiated and who is positioned as a responsible actor with the ability to perform actions that reduce loneliness. Three dominating discourses were found. In the discourse of responsibility within politics and the welfare state, the responsibility is both self-taken and designated to other institutions held responsible for not initiating sufficient measures to reduce loneliness. In the discourse of responsibility within societal and evolutionary perspectives on loneliness, developments beyond the individual's control are considered to contribute to loneliness. At the same time ‘we’ in ‘society’ are considered capable of reducing loneliness, thereby constructing individuals as responsible actors. Within the discourses of responsibility within senior organisations, both senior organisations and people who participate in activities are constructed as responsible actors. In conclusion, the responsibility for reducing loneliness is, apart from the discourse on senior organisations, designated to those working with older people.

Previous studies of East Asian welfare regimes focus on similarities between social security schemes. In contrast, this paper explores cross-national variations in public–private pension mixes in six welfare states: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Our research echoes the pension policy analysis of international organisations but takes a step forward with emphasis on the historical and institutional characteristics of the respective pension systems. The analysis identifies three institutional patterns. First, the statist pension system (Taiwan and China) primarily relies on public pensions to provide old-age security, with private pensions playing a rather minor role. Second, in the dualist pension system (Japan and Korea) both public and private pensions work in parallel to ensure retirement income, though a clear security gap exists between workers in the formal and informal economies. Finally, the individualist pension system (Hong Kong and Singapore) is characterised by genuine fully funded individual accounts, emphasising citizens’ own responsibilities for ensuring old-age security. These three types of pension systems demonstrate distinct institutional characteristics and policy outcomes, illustrated by the juxtaposition of their institutional structures as well as by the comparison of key indicators collected from government reports and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development statistics. The paper concludes with a theoretical reflection of East Asian pension policies and a diagnosis of the distinct challenges confronted by each of the various pension patterns.

About 65 million people use wheelchairs worldwide. Powered wheelchairs offer independent mobility for those who find it difficult to propel a manual wheelchair. Previous studies have described powered wheelchairs as a mixed blessing for the users in terms of usability, accessibility, safety, cost and stigma; however, few studies have explored their impact on mobility and participation over time. Therefore, as part of a larger longitudinal study, we used a combined retrospective and prospective lifecourse perspective to explore the experiences of older adult powered wheelchair users. Based on the interpretive description approach, 19 participants took part in a series of semi-structured interviews over a two-year period about their mobility, social participation and ageing process. The participants were powered wheelchair users, at least 50 years of age, recruited in Vancouver, Montreal and Quebec City (Canada). We identified three themes that highlighted how the powered wheelchair experience was integrated into the life continuum of the users. ‘It's my legs’ emphasised how powered wheelchairs are a form of mobility that not only enables users to take part in activities, but also impacts their identities, past and present. ‘Wheels of change’ explored the dynamic nature of powered wheelchair use and changes related to ageing. ‘Getting around’ illustrated how users’ mobility was affected by the interaction with their physical and social environments. Developing public policies to advance social and environmental changes could help countries to ensure equity of access and social inclusion of those ageing with disabilities.

This article examines how care encounters at the elders’ homes are forged, and how the way these encounters are forged avoids or evokes the social imaginary of the fourth age. Data were gathered in Portugal from elders receiving home care (16 cases), their care workers (eight cases) and family carers (six cases), through participant observation and informal conversations (conducted at the elders’ homes), as well as focus groups. The collected data were analysed according to the procedures of Framework Analysis. This study found five forms of care encounters – marked by conflict, infantilisation, burden, harmony and indifference – the harmony form being the only one found to maintain the fourth age at a distance. It concludes that home care has a Janus-like nature in relation to the fourth age, and that the way home care encounters are forged depends on the conditions of the care settings and the actions of all participants in care encounters. It also concludes that it is difficult to maintain the social imaginary of the fourth age at a distance when the elders exhibit high levels of infirmity. Finally, it concludes that family carers play a crucial role in the way care encounters unfold. Implications for practice and policy include vocational training regarding the relational component of care, and information and educational programmes for family carers.

Family care-givers are increasingly expected to find, understand and use information to meet the complex needs of older adults in their care. A significant number of studies, however, continue to report that care-givers’ information needs are unmet. Following Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review framework, I examined 72 articles for the range and extent of available research on the information work done by family care-givers of community-dwelling older adults living with dementia. To untangle the complex relationship between information and care, this scoping review maps out (a) the ways scholarly literature conceptualises the informational components of family care-givers’ work and (b) the degree to which scholarly research acknowledges these components as work. An institutional ethnography inflection enhanced the scoping review framework, enabling the privileging of lived experiences, questioning of assumptions of language used, attending to authors’ positioning and highlighting care-givers’ information work made invisible throughout the processes of academic research.