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Scientific article
OA Policy
English

Health: support provided and received in advanced old age

Contributors

Armi Cholley, Franca; Guilley, Edith; Lalive d'Epinay, Christian

Published in

Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, vol. 41, p. 56-62

Collection

  • Open Access - Licence nationale Springer

Publication date

2008

Abstract

While research focuses mainly on support provided to the elderly, this paper deals with the very old as a support provider to his family as much as a care recipient from both his family and a formal network. We hypothesize that elders with declining health will try to maintain the provision of services, even when they require and receive help. A total of 340 octogenarians from the Swiss Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on the Oldest Old (SWILSOO) were interviewed up to five times over five years (N=1225 interviews). A multilevel model was applied to assess the effects of health, controlled for socio-demographic and family network variables, on the frequency of services that the old persons provided to their family and received from their family and formal networks. Health is operationalized in three statuses: ADL-dependent, ADL-independent frail, and robust. While the recourse to the informal network increased progressively with the process of frailty, the recourse to the formal network drastically increased for ADL-dependent individuals. Being ADL-dependent seriously altered the capacity to provide services, but ADL-independent frail persons were providers with the same frequency as the robust oldest old, showing their ability to preserve a principle of reciprocity in their exchanges with their family network. This continuity of roles may help frail persons to maintain their self-esteem and well-being.

Keywords

  • Activités de la vie quotidienne (AVQ)
  • Dépendance
  • Etude longitudinale
  • Fragilité
  • Grande vieillesse
  • Indépendance
  • Réseau d'aide

UNIGE affiliation entities

Citation (ISO format)

ARMI CHOLLEY, Franca, GUILLEY, Edith, LALIVE D’EPINAY, Christian. Health: support provided and received in advanced old age. In: Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, 2008, vol. 41, p. 56–62. doi: 10.1007/s00391-007-0457-z

Main files (1)

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

Journal ISSN

0948-6704
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407downloads

Technical informations

Creation

18/11/2013 13:36:34

First validation

18/11/2013 13:36:34

Update

23/12/2025 16:54:35

Status update

23/12/2025 16:54:35

Last indexation

23/12/2025 16:55:24
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