[Every day life experiences of healthy and mobility impaired elderly patients]

Studies on the everyday life of the elderly often deal with visible behavior. In this study, the subjective experience of the everyday living environment was investigated, paying special consideration to the role of mobility impairment. Two approaches, one oriented toward the subject's experience of the home environment, another oriented toward the environmental specifics of the individual's favorite place, were employed. Is the experience of living at home different for individuals with various levels of competence? Which aspects are perceived to be the most important? 84 men and women aged 62-92 years (M = 77 years) participated in the study. 42 persons were generally healthy; the other 42 subjects suffered from severe mobility impairment. The experience of the everyday environment was assessed in semistructured interviews at home. A content analysis of the data gathered using the person-oriented approach resulted in five experiential categories. Differences between healthy and mobility impaired adults were found in the experience of cognitive, biographical, and spatial dimensions of the living environment. Similarities were found in the experience of emotional, social, and behavioral dimensions of one's home. Competence loss played an important role in how the subjects experienced living at home, yet even the mobility impaired experienced their home as an environment which could be shaped. The environment-oriented approach showed that the favorite place of mobility impaired persons was characterized by higher spatial density. Finally, an examination of four home environment profiles using cluster analysis illustrated the connection between both person- and environment-oriented approaches and offered insights into a transactional perspective of person and environment. Even though the subjective experience of one's home environment is not easily quantifiable in terms of maintaining everyday competence, it nonetheless imparts meaning to the elderly person's daily life.