Issues of ‘disability’ and ‘ageing’ are usually approached separately in theorising, activism and policy making. Yet people with disabilities age and many people will experience disability if they live long enough. Human rights approaches to disability enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) are not often applied to older people experiencing disability. This article presents findings of a systematic qualitative analysis of reports made by 28 European states to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the independent body that monitors CRPD implementation, focusing particularly on Article 19 CRPD (‘Living independently and being included in the community’). While states’ reports refer to older people or ageing in different contexts, their approach can be characterised as ambivalent. Reports tend to constitute older people experiencing disability as ‘older’ rather than ‘disabled’; they do not demonstrate a thorough engagement with disability experienced in older age, and display a limited focus on people ageing with lifelong disability. Several reports detail exclusions of ‘older people’ from disability supports to live in the community and some exclude impairments associated with ageing from definitions of what ‘disability’ is. The reports provide almost no evidence of consultation with organisations working on ageing. The article concludes that while the CRPD’s potential to contribute to realising rights for older people with disabilities is under-recognised among scholars and non-governmental organisations, the fact that states refer to older people in their reporting under the CRPD provides a starting point for more engagement.

The characteristics of Australian retirement village residents, an under-researched population, are not well understood. Knowledge of their wellbeing and modifiable factors associated with low wellbeing would aid in the introduction of health promotion measures and supports to facilitate healthy ageing-in-place. A novel approach utilising latent class analysis (LCA), a statistical method not previously employed to study this population, was undertaken to analyse cross-sectional survey data from 871 participants aged ≥65 years from retirement villages in Queensland, Australia. LCA identified latent, i.e. unobserved, underlying and often difficult to measure, groups within this population based on the responses of individuals to multiple observed variables. Survey participants were divided into groups, each with a distinct profile associated with a wellbeing state, as determined by responses to questions about physical health, unplanned hospitalisations, cognitive health and social connectedness. Multinomial logistic regression explored the relationship between modifiable health and lifestyle characteristics and membership of a particular wellbeing group. The median age of participants was 82 years (interquartile range = 76–88). While 69.0 per cent reported good to excellent health, polypharmacy was evident with 45.6 per cent of participants taking five or more prescription medications. In the previous 12 months, 33.3 per cent had experienced one or more falls and 30.6 per cent an unplanned hospitalisation. Distinct profiles were identified for three wellbeing groups: high (57.7% of participants), moderate (20.6%) and low wellbeing (21.7%). Injurious falls, limited ability to prepare meals and debilitating pain were associated with the moderate and low wellbeing groups. Physical activity significantly lowered the probability of a retirement village resident being in the low wellbeing group. Our findings highlight falls prevention, maintaining adequate nutrition, pain management and regular physical activity as actions that may optimise wellbeing, mitigate functional decline and support the independence of retirement village residents into later years of life.

Dementia is recognised as the biggest health crisis of our time in terms of high personal and social costs and wider impact on health and social care systems. Increases in people living with dementia and multi-morbidities presents critical challenges for home care worldwide. Health-care systems struggle to provide adequate home-care services, delivering limited care restricted to a single-condition focus. This study explored the experiences and expectations of home care from the multiple perspectives of people living with dementia and multi-morbidities and home-care workers providing support. Findings draw from qualititative semi-structured interviews with people with dementia (N = 2), their partners (N = 2), other partners or family carers (N = 6) and home-care workers (N = 26). Three themes are identified: (a) the preference for and value of home; (b) inadequate home-care provision and enhanced care burden; and (c) limited training and education. Despite continued calls for home-care investment, the focus on reduction in costs hides key questions and further dialogue is required exploring how people with dementia can be supported to live independently and flourish at home. This study considers these complex experiences and care requirements through the prism of disability and human rights frameworks. This paper concludes with consideration of more recent human social rights debate. We discuss critically what this may mean for people living with dementia and consider the implications for co-requisite policy development to optimise available home-care support.

We studied older people's perceptions of how they organise their out-of-home mobility and independent living when they face mobility restrictions, based on seven focus groups with older people (N = 28) from a suburb in Finland. This article provides an everyday life view of how the ability to move outside the home evolves through interdependencies between older people and their neighbourhoods, social relations and societal arrangements. Our findings show that supportive socio-material surroundings can provide older people with new ways to move outside their home despite mobility restrictions and new ways to organise their daily life with decreased mobility. In contrast, restrictive socio-material surroundings can lead to situations in which older people forgo certain out-of-home journeys and activities. The findings contribute to an understanding that organising one's daily life and out-of-home mobility is an act of interdependence. Policies promoting independent living in old age should recognise these fundamental interdependencies and support versatile ways of living rather than overemphasise activity and self-reliance. Based on older people's everyday life perspectives, both sides of the coin need to be considered: how to enable the out-of-home mobility of older people facing mobility restrictions and how to support them in managing and enjoying daily life with decreased mobility.

The purpose is to give an overview of the extent, range and nature of existing definitions of the concept ‘ageing in place’. Providing such an overview may be helpful, for policy makers, researchers, communities and service providers, to make sense of the versatility and uses of the concept, and allow the improvement and increase the success of efforts to contribute to the quality of life of older people. The overview was created using Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review methodology. Out of 3,692 retrieved articles, 34 met the inclusion criteria. These studies concentrate on the following five key themes concerning ‘ageing in place’: ‘ageing in place’ in relation to place, to social networks, to support, to technology and to personal characteristics. Each of these key themes consists of other aspects, like physical place and attachment to place for the keyword place. This study concludes that the concept ‘ageing in place’ is broad and can be viewed from different (i.e. five) key themes. A more thorough understanding of ‘ageing in place’ provides knowledge about the existing key themes and aspects. These findings might provide practical support for professionals and governments when they develop their policies about ‘ageing in place’ integrally and to develop fit policies.

Scholars point out a tension between racial justice and disability rights activism. Although racial minorities are more likely to become disabled than whites, both disability activism and the historiography of disability politics tend to focus on the experience and achievements of whites. This article examines how disability rights activists of the 1970s sought to build a united movement of all people with disabilities and explains why these efforts were unable to overcome cleavages predicated on race. Activists drew from New Left ideas of community and self-help as well as the New Right rhetoric of market freedoms to articulate a vision of liberation for people with disabilities. Though they yearned for racial solidarity, in practice, activists could not overcome institutions that separated antipoverty and racial politics from disability policy, nor could they figure out how to incorporate minority voices in an identity-based movement forged around disability rather than color.

Research on young people transitioning out of the childcare system and into young adulthood is inevitably reductionist in that it is unable to take into account the many complex forces that play a role in the development of a child from birth, into and through the care system and on to adulthood. Consequently, studies on the outcomes of care-leavers need to be interpreted with care and thought. This paper serves to illustrate these challenges in research and the various ways that research results can be interpreted by drawing on data from a study being conducted in a residential care programme in South Africa. Demographic, pre-care and in-care variables of a sample of care-leavers are compared with a set of independent living outcome variables a year after aging out of care. Unanticipated results are contrasted with those that were anticipated, and multiple interpretations of the same results are provided. Because of this, the author calls for judicious and humble use of research results when making judgements about the outcomes of care-leavers and the effectiveness of child welfare interventions.

Passive monitoring technology is beginning to be reimbursed by third-party payers in the United States of America. Given the low voluntary uptake of these technologies on the market, it is important to understand the concerns and perspectives of users, former users and non-users. In this paper, the range of ways older adults relate to passive monitoring in low-income independent-living residences is presented. This includes experiences of adoption, non-adoption, discontinuation and creative ‘misuse’. The analysis of interviews reveals three key insights. First, assumptions built into the technology about how older adults live present a problem for many users who experience unwanted disruptions and threats to their behavioural autonomy. Second, resident response is varied and challenges the dominant image of residents as passive subjects of a passive monitoring system. Third, the priorities of older adults (e.g. safety, autonomy, privacy, control, contact) are more diverse and multi-faceted than those of the housing organisation staff and family members (e.g. safety, efficiency) who drive the passive monitoring intervention. The tension between needs, desires and the daily lives of older adults and the technological solutions offered to them is made visible by their active responses, including resistance to them. This exposes the active and meaningful qualities of older adults’ decisions and practices.

This study investigated the relationship between cognitive, psychological and physical symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) and independent living optimism among a sample of 5,082 adults with MS (females = 77.8%; Whites = 96.1%, age range 20 to 91 years). Data on physical, cognitive and psychological function were collected utilising standardised clinical measures including the Multiple Sclerosis Impact Scale-29, Perceived Deficits Questionnaire-5-Item version, and the Independent Living Optimism scale. Multiple regression analysis indicated that specific physical, psychological and cognitive factors contributed to the overall prediction model. The combined variables explained approximately 33% of the variance in independent living optimism. This study enables a specific, item-level understanding of the relationship between MS-related symptoms and independent living optimism, and provides important information for the development of targeted rehabilitation interventions.

This paper draws attention to the need for further understanding of the fine details of routine and taken-for-granted daily activities and mobility. It argues that such understanding is critical if technologies designed to mitigate the negative impacts of falls and fear-of-falling are to provide unobtrusive support for independent living. The reported research was part of a large, multidisciplinary, multi-site research programme into responses to population ageing in Ireland, Technologies for Independent Living (TRIL). A small, exploratory, qualitative life-space diary study was conducted. Working with eight community-dwelling older adults with different experiences of falls or of fear-of-falls, data were collected through weekly life-space diaries, daily-activity logs, two-dimensional house plans and a pedometer. For some participants, self-recording of their daily activities and movements revealed routine, potentially risky behaviour about which they had been unaware, which may have implications for falls-prevention advice. The findings are presented and discussed around four key themes: ‘being pragmatic’, ‘not just a faller’, ‘heightened awareness and blind spots’ and ‘working with technology’. The findings suggest a need to think creatively about how technological and other solutions best fit with people's everyday challenges and needs and of critical importance, that their installation does not reduce an older adult to ‘just a faller’ or a person with a fear-of-falls.