Functional Limitations to Daily Living Tasks in the Aged: A Focus Group Analysis
- 1 March 1998
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
- Vol. 40 (1) , 111-125
- https://doi.org/10.1518/001872098779480613
Abstract
We assessed constraints on daily living of 59 healthy, active adults 65–88 years of age in focus group interviews. Individual comments about specific problems were coded along the dimensions of (a) the locus of the problem (motor, visual, auditory, cognitive, external, or health limitations); (b) the activity involved (e.g., transportation, leisure, housekeeping); (c) whether the problem was attributable to task difficulty or the perception of risk; and (d) response to limitations (perseverance, cessation, compensation, or self-improvement). The data provide information about the types of difficulties encountered in everyday activities as well as the way in which individuals respond to such difficulties. Each comment was also coded in terms of whether it was remediable via training, design changes, or some combination of the two. More than half of the problems that were reported had the potential to be improved in some way, thus providing direction for future research in human factors and aging. Actual or potential applications of this research include identifying problems and difficulties that older adults encounter in daily activities such as transportation and leisure; more specifically, determining the degree to which such problems are potentially remediable by human factors solutions. Applications of this research also include understanding the types of systems, products, and technologies that older adults interact with currently, or are interested in learning to use.Keywords
This publication has 17 references indexed in Scilit:
- Age-related differences in the motoric aspects of transcription typing skill.Psychology and Aging, 1993
- Special Issue PrefaceHuman Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 1992
- Visibility Distance of Highway Signs among Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Observers: Icons Are Better than TextHuman Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 1990
- Aging and Performance of Home TasksHuman Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 1990
- Older Adults and Daily Living Task ProfilesHuman Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 1990
- Special Issue PrefaceHuman Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 1990
- Chapter Eight Expertise and Aging: Life in the LabPublished by Elsevier ,1990
- Human Factors Research and Functional Environments for the AgedPublished by Springer Nature ,1984
- Human engineering environments for the agedApplied Ergonomics, 1974
- Assessment of Older People: Self-Maintaining and Instrumental Activities of Daily LivingThe Gerontologist, 1969