Meaningful Activities: Podcast with Anna Oh and Theresa Allison
Most studies in geriatrics have used metrics such as survival time or disability in activities of daily living as their outcome measure.\xa0 Many palliative care interventions are evaluated on the basis of ability to change symptoms such as pain.\xa0 But these outcomes represent a thin view of the human experience.\xa0 What older adults and those with serious illness often care about most is being able to do the activities that animate their lives with meaning and purpose.\xa0 Participating in meaningful activities is central to quality of life, and yet is poorly captured in most outcome scales.
In this week\u2019s podcast, Ken Covinsky joins Eric Widera and I to talk with Anna Oh and Theresa Allison, two researchers who have taken very different approaches to studying meaningful activities.\xa0 Anna conducted a quantitative study, getting a 30,000 foot view of older adults with dementia, disability, and depression\u2019s ability to participate in meaningful activities.\xa0 Most people think that a good quality of life isn\u2019t possible for people with these conditions. Anna\u2019s study, published in JAMA IM, finds that most older adults with these conditions are still engaging in meaningful activities.
Theresa\u2019s qualitative study, published in JAMDA, delves deep into the lived experience of older adults with dementia and their caregivers. She finds that while they have had to adapt to support participation in meaningful activities, the underlying sources of meaning have remained the same.\xa0 Interestingly, caregiver stress was higher when the people with dementia they cared for stopped participating in meaningful activities.\xa0 Helping people with dementia and caregivers adapt to continue to engage in meaningful activities is a creative activity that is at the heart of good geriatric and palliative care.
\xa0