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3 - The ideas of reablement and their travel across time and space
- Edited by Tine Rostgaard, Roskilde Universitet, Denmark and Stockholms Universitet, John Parsons, University of Auckland, Hanne Tuntland, Oslo Metropolitan University
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- Book:
- Reablement in Long-term Care for Older People
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 18 January 2024
- Print publication:
- 26 January 2023, pp 46-67
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Summary
Introduction
Across a number of regions, the overall approach and design of reablement services were originally objectified under different names when they were enacted, and sometimes, institutionalised, in different geographical contexts. Nevertheless, there is a striking resemblance in the ideas of reablement and how they have materialised into reablement policies and practices, with common elements across regional locations and in specific countries (Metzelthin et al, 2020).
This chapter investigates the travelling of these ideas and their materialisation into reablement policies and practices, internationally as well as nationally. The main analysis explores whether and how the ideas behind reablement have travelled within and across three regional empirical cases and materialised into national policies and local practices. The chapter also investigates how this development has been supported sequentially by the policy agendas of ‘active and healthy ageing’, which have been part of international policy rhetoric for years, by such organisations as the European Union (EU), Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and World Health Organization (WHO).
Two theoretical frameworks are applied: the travel of ideas across localities (Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996), and rhetorical frames related to policy change (Béland, 2009). The chapter is organised in three sections: after the theoretical framework and research methods are presented, the development of the transnational ideas of active and healthy ageing is outlined, and how these ideas may have materialised into objects and contributed to local actions and national institutions in three world regions are analysed; the chapter is rounded off with a discussion and a conclusion.
This study illustrates how ideas and local processes behind enabling and active approaches to ageing have not been unidirectional but rather a set of complex and composite processes. In many countries, there have been significant bottom-up processes as practical responses to ageing populations and financial pressures on public services; as we see it, however, influenced by the transnational ideas of active and healthy ageing.
Theoretical perspectives
To analyse these processes of travelling ideas, the chapter mainly draws on Barbara Czarniawska and her co-writers’ study of organisational changes across localities (Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996). The travelling ideas concept is understood as referring to ‘processes of translation’ or the sense that ‘to set something in a new place is to construct it anew’ (Latour, 1987, as cited in Czarniawska and Sevón, 2005: 8).
Reablement in need of theories of ageing: would theories of successful ageing do?
- Jette Thuesen, Marte Feiring, Daniel Doh, Rudi G. J. Westendorp
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- Journal:
- Ageing & Society / Volume 43 / Issue 7 / July 2023
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 18 August 2021, pp. 1489-1501
- Print publication:
- July 2023
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- Article
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The reablement approach is becoming a popular social and health-care model in many Western countries, providing support strategies for older people experiencing impairment. Reablement programmes have been criticised for a lack of theories, explicating the understanding of the problem that it is intended to address, i.e. ageing and impairment in old age. We need to discuss the inherent theories in intervention programmes to question taken-for-granted assumptions about not only what works, but also how these assumptions affect the sociocultural models of ageing. Theories on successful ageing have been suggested as underpinning reablement. This article aims to present and discuss theories of successful ageing compared to key principles, components and outcomes in reablement. A medical and epidemiological, a psychological and a sociocultural theoretical approach to successful ageing are included. Contemporary reablement programmes mirror medical and psychological theories of successful ageing, including models of ageing that are associated with continuity, optimisation, selection, individuality and goal orientation. Most reablement programmes do not address sociocultural perspectives on ageing. As older people experience impairment in a pertinent liminality within and between the sociocultural values of the third and fourth age, it is important for reablement programmes and practice to consider the theoretical assumptions and underpinning theories of ageing and how to help older people balance between optimising capacity and accepting losses in their everyday life.