In design disciplines, an affective understanding of users' everyday lives can increase designer sensitivity and awareness, leading to higher-quality design outcomes. Developing students' empathic understanding within design education is required to accomplish this goal. This article discusses learning strategies that enhance students' empathic…

The purpose of the study addressed in this article was to identify ways to reduce risk and improve safe aging in place among rural older adults. Resident and Extension faculty and county educators visited study participants at home to assess functional capacity and the home environment. Extension professionals may be uniquely positioned to provide…

Empty nest syndrome occurs as a result of urbanization and loosened relationships among family members. It may threaten the life quality of older adults and stability of society as a whole. This survey was designed to investigate the situation and factors that influence the life quality of a sample of older adults in a western state. Thirty-five…

Drawing on interview data regarding literacy practices done in tandem with housework, this article presents an array of recipe uses among retirement-age women. Given their backgrounds as professionals who come of age during second-wave feminism, the women see little value in "domestic" practices such as cooking literacies (Barton & Hamilton).…

Purpose: To describe caregivers' constructions of their caregiving role in providing care to elders they knew were dying from life-limiting illnesses. Design and Methods: Study involved in-depth interviews with 27 family caregivers. Data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis. Results: Four categories were identified: centering life on…

This article proposes a Thurstonian model in the framework of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to assess preferences among quality of life dimensions for the elderly. Data were gathered by a paired comparison design in a sample comprised of 323 people aged from 65 to 94 years old. Five dimensions of quality of life were evaluated: Health,…

The objective of this cross-sectional study was to identify the factors associated with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of family caregivers of Chinese stroke patients. One hundred and twenty-three stroke patients consecutively admitted to a stroke clinic and their 123 family caregivers were recruited. The caregivers' HRQOLs were assessed…

Examined likelihood of parent-adult child coresidence and implications of coresidence for quality of life as perceived by parents. Data from 1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households showed that positive home environment was strong selection factor in predicting probability of coresidence. Middle-class parents reported more negative…

Research on family relationships has indicated that the family is the primary basis of security for adults in later life. To explore the family environment and interactional experience of multigenerational families in which the elderly grandparent is chronically ill, 12 families (12 grandparents, 13 adult children, and 11 grandchildren) completed…