ALVA - Health, care and everyday activities of older people

In the research group "Older persons health, care and everyday life" (ALVA), we study the challenges that older persons meet in the health care system and the difficulties older persons meet in their everyday life. What can we do to enhance the life situation of older persons with declining function? In the research group we investigate how interventions in medicine, nursing, physiotherapy and occupational therapy can support en make everyday life easier for the older person.

We conduct studies of whether different forms of housing can affect the satisfaction with activities and everyday life; how contact with the health care system changes when a new form for giving care that is more tailored to older persons needs is introduced, and what aspects of everyday life that drive older persons to repeatedly seek hospital care. To study difficulties in everyday life for older persons living, evaluation instruments with good psychometric properties are needed, which we study. We also conduct studies that focus on older people in ordinary housing, how it works to provide care at home but also how community day centers work.