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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Sex and gender in older adults' experience of Parkinson's disease | | Author(s) | Samantha Solimeo |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 63B, no 1, January 2008 |
| Pages | pp S42-S48 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | Older men ; Older women ; Living in the community ; Attitude ; Parkinson's disease ; Sexual activity ; Social surveys ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Data derived from 15 months of ethnographic study among community-dwelling older adults living with Parkinson's disease (PD) in eastern Iowa, United States were used to report on men's and women's experiences of the disease. The study utilized these methods: participant observation at PD support group meetings, illness narrative interviews with PD sufferers, and a questionnaire. A total of 171 PD sufferers (106 men, 65 women) enrolled in the study. Illness narratives revealed gender differences in the impact of specific symptoms on daily life. Whereas women's narratives emphasized the impact of the on/off effect and "thinking problems", men's narratives emphasized the consequences of their physical appearance. In comparison, quantitative data found little sex difference in symptomatology. The comparison of qualitatively and quantitatively derived data reveals the importance of attending to both sexuality and gender. Qualitative data demonstrate how the meaning of PD symptoms is gendered and illustrate an example of how gender and sexual research differ. All narratives reflect the importance of role continuity, but whereas men's narratives put appearance and social isolation at the forefront, women's narratives underscore their relational aspects of domestic activities. These data imply that providers must look beyond symptomatology to the gendered saliency of particular somatic phenomena. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-091208218 A |
| Classmark | BC: BD: K4: DP: CR6: BIU: 3F: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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