Tine Fristrup

Barriers to participation in a hospital-based falls assessment clinic programme: an interview study with older people:

Aims: To gain new knowledge about barriers to participation in hospital-based falls assessment. Methods: Semi-structured interviews with 20 older people referred to falls assessment at a hospital-based clinic were conducted. A convenience sample of 10 refusers and 10 accepters was collected. Those who refused referral were recruited in relation to a systematic falls screening programme performed by preventive home visitors. Accepters were selected among 72 participants successively completing the falls assessment clinic programme. The time between the interviews was 12 months; different levels of knowledge were expected, owing to accepters’ participation in the programme. Interview transcriptions were thematically analysed. The analysis was directed towards identification of barriers to falls assessment. Results: Barriers to participation were categorized as being either within or outside the falls clinic, and included administration, time, communication, attitudes to fall prevention, and expected future costs. Accepters completing the programme expressed a feeling of being ‘‘met’’ in the system and maintaining authority over their own life, while the refusers expressed concern about the healthcare system taking over their life. Conclusions: This study indicates that older at-risk patients acknowledge their falls problem, but refuse to participate in hospital-based assessment programmes because they expect to lose their authority and to be caught up in the healthcare system. In order to transform the findings of this study to a public health message, we have to consider moving the focus of falls prevention strategies from disease control to the domain of health promotion in order to engage older adults in preventive healthcare.

Lifelong learning for active ageing in Nordic museums; archives and street art

Abstract In this article, we develop a framework that demonstrates how older adults need to develop diverse capabilities in relation to their educational life course through engagements in Nordic museums, archives and street art activities. We discuss how European museums have taken up UNESCO’s approach to lifelong learning as a way to conceptualise activities for older adults’ in museums, as we emphasise an approach to adult education for active ageing articulated as ‘lifelong learning for active ageing’. To illustrate this framing, we outline a number of activities taken from publications, cultural sites and conferences in which we have been involved over the last decade in the context of the Nordic Centre of Heritage Learning and Creativity in Östersund, Sweden. We argue that lifelong learning for active ageing in cultural heritage institutions can contribute to the development of older adults’ civic capabilities that needs to be seen as a prerequisite for the development of older adults’ health capabilities.