Dependent elderly living at home: a comprehensive analysis using Heidegger historicity

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.5216/ree.v14i2.10313

With the world’s population aging, more dependent elderly individuals are living at home with chronic diseases, or due to the burden of aging. The present study is excerpted from a doctoral thesis aimed at identifying ways of being aged while cared for at home. The objective is to present a comprehensive analysis of the meaning unit: experiences of their presence, most of the time, in an inappropriate historicity. A phenomenological research was performed, founded on Martin Heidegger’s book Being and Time, with five elderly patients being followed by two homecare programs. The interviews were transcribed and read to retrieve the ontic and ontological aspects and form the meaning unit. Based on the statements, it was understood that aspects related to the financial and family situation, stroke-related effects, accessibility to formal and informal services, and their life experiences comprise the historicity of the subjects and affect their way of being.