What Does Ageing Well Mean When You Need Help?

Families with a parent or grandparent in their late eighties often measure how well they're doing by how independent they still are. “She's still so independent” sounds like very good news. A new study asked very old people themselves what ageing well means, including when someone else's help has become part of everyday life.

It's understandable that families pay attention to what a person can still do alone. Being able to wash, dress, shop and go out without assistance leaves plenty of choices in their own hands, and every new difficulty may bring a worry about what will happen next.

What very old people said

Aslı Gözde Akış, a researcher in gerontology, the study of ageing, at Balıkesir University in Türkiye, interviewed 12 people aged 82 to 100 in their own homes in Balıkesir, a province in the country's northwest. Each interview lasted about 55 minutes.

This was a small study in one place and culture, published in the Balıkesir Health Sciences Journal, a peer-reviewed university journal in Türkiye. You can read the original study here.

One woman, aged 85, was quite clear about what mattered to her:

“Let me look after myself and not be dependent on anyone. There is nothing as bad as being dependent on someone.”

For a family hearing that, every bit of assistance might seem like something to postpone, since the person they love has said so plainly that dependence is what she fears.

Help can make a choice possible

Then an 87-year-old woman answered in a way that opens up another possibility:

She still wanted to go. Having a trusted person along was part of how she could manage it, and that leaves the family with something fairly practical to consider, because her wish to travel hadn't disappeared along with her ability to do it alone.

A man of 83 spoke about an activity that had changed:

“I used to start swimming from here… I would swim all the way to the pier. It was perhaps seven kilometers. Now I cannot swim, but I go walking.”

There's a temptation to dwell on the swimming, especially if we remember someone as active and capable and keep comparing everything they do now with what they once managed. He included walking in his answer, though. It was still something he could do.

Dependence is not the whole arrangement

Then the 85-year-old woman who had spoken so strongly against dependence described life with her husband:

“The man is lame, and so am I. But we support each other. He helps me, I help him.”

How would a question about independence capture that arrangement? She wanted to look after herself, and she also belonged to a marriage where each helped the other, so even her own answer becomes more interesting once there's time to hear the rest.

Having a say in the Wise Elder years

During the Wise Elder years, from 85 to 90, who helps and how they help can become very concrete questions. Someone may need company to go out while still having a clear idea of where they want to go.

Across the interviews, people spoke about relationships, faith, activity, purpose and having a say in their own lives. Loneliness was linked less to living alone than to feeling forgotten or unvalued. A 92-year-old put it this way: “Dying is in our fate; but to be forgotten, how sorrowful.”

That leaves a family with quite a lot to consider beyond whether the shopping has been done. There may be a place the person still wants to visit, someone they want to see or something they want to contribute, and the help required may be easier to identify once they've had room to explain.

Sources

• Akış, Balıkesir Health Sciences Journal (Balıkesir University, Türkiye)