Health, illness and frailty in old age: a phenomenological exploration



Pickard, S ORCID: 0000-0003-3429-8880
(2018) Health, illness and frailty in old age: a phenomenological exploration. Journal of Aging Studies, 47. pp. 24-31.

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to subject the clinical classification of frailty to scrutiny through exploring, via a phenomenological lens, the lived experiences of older people who meet the objective, or clinical, criteria of frailty. Drawing on a range of published research that explores the heterogeneous experiences of embodied ageing, the paper highlights the continuity of phenomenological structures of experience across successful ageing, normal ageing and frailty, suggesting the permeability and contestability of the boundaries between them and highlighting the complexity of health and illness in old age. Such data suggests a need to question the perception of frailty as something both apart from ‘normal’ ageing, and constitutive of frailed or failed ageing, and challenges the construction of the third age/fourth age polarity that underpins much of the meaning accorded to old age today.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: frailty, phenomenology, fourth age, successful ageing, normal ageing
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 15 Oct 2018 14:38
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2023 01:14
DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2018.10.002
Open Access URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2018.10.002
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URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3027433