Self-Care Practices in the Context of Older Adults Living Independently

Abstract

Supporting practices around self-care is crucial for enabling older adults to continue living in their own homes and ageing in place. While existing assistive technology and research concerning self-care practices have been centered on a medicalized viewpoint, it neglects a holistic perspective of older adults' preferences in self-care. This paper presents a study involving 12 older adults aged 65 and above in a semi-structured interview study, where we aimed to understand participants' practices around self-care. Our findings show that self-care in such cases involves activities across the physical, emotional and psychological, social, leisure and spiritual domains. This paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the daily self-care practices of older adults including an updated self-care framework identifying key aspects, and a set of design implications for self-care assistive technologies.