Well-being and older people: a review of the literature

Most countries in the world are experiencing an expansion in their population of older people. As people now expect to live longer, they also seek continuing health and well-being throughout their extended old age. Occupational therapists are involved in working towards the attainment of well-being with their older clients. However, their understandings of what well-being for older people entails seems varied, as this examination of the occupational therapy and related gerontological literature reveals.

Three key points emerge from the literature review: first, the definition of well-being is usually assumed, or is lacking in clarity, and a range of similar terms, such as happiness and life satisfaction, are used interchangeably; second, well-being has been measured in research using various scales, which may not capture the complexity of the concept; and third, the perspective of the older person is often missing in discussions of well-being.

It is suggested that one way of moving occupational therapists' understanding of well-being forward is to conduct research into what older people themselves understand or perceive well-being to be.