My research interest is in the oldest old people in society, their everyday life and their use of technology. To get their clients’ everyday life to work is the goal of occupational therapists, and it is within the Occupational therapist programme that I teach.
Appointment as head of division
I am the head of Division Occupational Therapy since 1 January 2016. Before that, 2008-2015, I had the assignment as the head of Division Health, Activity, and Care (HAV).
The position includes personnel, finance and operational responsibilities.
The division’s employees teach primarily on the Occupational therapist programme, and is part of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in Norrköping. As head of division I am a member of the advisory council to the Department for Social and Welfare Studies (ISV).
Everyday life of the oldest old
My research interest concerns the oldest old people in society and various aspects of their everyday lives. My PhD thesis in 2009 was entitled Everyday life amongst the oldest old - descriptions of doings and possession and use of technology.
Issues to do with everyday life, technology and remaining at home have continued to be areas of research after the PhD as well. The research is mainly qualitative, in order to raise the elderly’s own perspectives on these issues. Technology is seen as a mediator for remaining at home and the daily activities of older people, and is expected to contribute to maintaining health, and thus to healthy and active ageing.
Disbandment of home
The project “Att skingra hemmet. Tingens förändrade betydelse under livets sena skeden och övergångar” (“Disbandment of home. The changing meaning of possessions in later life transitions”), was carried out in collaboration with researchers from the National Institute for the Study of Ageing and Later Life (NISAL). The overall aim of this project was to study the changing meaning of personal possessions in later life transitions. These later life transitions is linked to the ageing process and can be caused by the onset of illness, by the death of a partner, a move to a care home, or by another changed life situation.
The starting point of the project was that such life transitions bring to fore a change of the personal objects in the home, i.e. that the old person has to divest or disband the home and the personal objects that once was created.
In collaboration with associate professor Jan-Erik Hagberg of NISAL (now ASC) a sub study aiming at studying the divestiture behaviours among older persons over the age of 85 still living in their own home was carried out with in the project.
Teaching
The teaching is mostly within the Occupational Therapy programme on Campus Norrköping. I am for example course coordinator of the second-cycle course “Occupational therapy for older people”, work as examiner on semester 2 of the first cycle, and supervises and examines degree projects.
