Representação da queda em ambiente doméstico: um enfoque na autonomia do idoso

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

27/04/2011

RESUMO

Background. Domestic accidents involving falls, as a common episode in the elderly households, can reach the point of physical incapacitation, with consequent loss of independence at old age. Research has pointed out schemes for accident avoidance, including rearranging home spaces and furniture in safer ways. Based on observation and generalization, treatment often deal with old people as if forming a homogeneous group, thus establishing a single pattern of intervention upon the elders` home wandering habits, and life style, with little or no regard, to individual differences. To effectively protect the aging person, such practical aid should adapt to each case, beginning by knowing what he/she thinks and says about his/her aging condition. Object: to establish which perceptions and behavioral categories were employed by elders when describing their own physical ability and intellectual condition as related to a past episode of fall. Method: a qualitative research was done, consisting of semi-structured interviews about motives given by aging individuals, their reasons, their spontaneous opinions about both their health condition, and causes of falls in the home. Results: 15 subjects (11 men, 4 women, mean age= 74.8) were interviewed at home, of a lower medium class neighborhood of Sao Paulo, all under medical attention of a geriatric program, (epidoso) by Unifesp`s Department of Preventive Medicine. Data was transcribed and grouped into cultural concepts and categories, revealing modes of thinking, thus condensed: a) subjects blame falls at home to distraction, lack of attention and fail, that is, for them the fall is due to a momentary absence of awareness, but in-depth analysis reveals underlying lack of perception of obstacles` true place in the room, that end up in stumbling and fall. This is aggravated by the supposed familiarity with a notion of the labyrinth of home, its paths being no longer true, following itineraries no longer precise. In other words, judgment becomes definitely impaired, and yet continues to orient actions, which are now wrong; b) objectivity, in self-evaluation, can be disfigured by a warped interpretation of reality, due to magical or pseudo-scientific beliefs, that commonly carry a serious outcome, the non-compliance with existing medical programs. Conclusion. Programs vowed to raise the aging people`s awareness of dangers of falling in the home should consider close inclusion of cultural traits of subjects as well as an appraisal of the state of self awareness. In addition, individual diversity, behavioral and social, should be taken into account when the issue is preventive counseling.

ASSUNTO(S)

envelhecimento quedas percepção autonomia funcional estudo qualitativo saude coletiva aging falls perception

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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