
Susanne IwarssonLund University | LU · Department of Health Sciences
Susanne Iwarsson
PhD, professor
About
343
Publications
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Introduction
Susanne Iwarsson currently works at the Department of Health Sciences, Lund University. Susanne does research in Geriatrics, Public Health and Rehabilitation Medicine. Their current project is 'Activity avoidance, Walking difficulties, Mobility devices in people with Parkinson's disease'.
Publications
Publications (343)
Despite the potential of smart home technologies (SHT) to support everyday activities, the implementation rate of such technology in the homes of older adults remains low. The overall aim of this study was to explore factors involved in the decision-making process in adopting SHT among current and future generations of older adults. We also aimed t...
Background
The aging of the world’s population and the increase in sedentary lifestyles are leading to an increase in walking impairments at older ages. Here, we aimed to comprehensively discuss walking in the context of an aging population; and identify and agree on a list of future research priorities and policy actions.
Methods
We followed a pa...
While research in the field of technology is surging, research on older adults playing an active role in designing and developing smart home technology (SHT) to enhance usability and adoption is lacking. It is important to co-develop products with potential users to better match their needs and desires. This study aims to generate ideas about SHT t...
Established in 2007, the Centre for Ageing and Supportive Environments (CASE) is an interdisciplinary research environment at Lund University, Sweden. The center’s activities are led by a steering committee in close collaboration with the CASE User Council, which provides input, ideas and poses research questions for various research projects. Betw...
When functional limitations increase with age, perceived qualities of the home may influence the level of activity among older adults. Active aging is the process through which people strive to maintain wellbeing when growing old. The aim of this study was to investigate whether perceived housing moderates the relationship between functional limita...
Welfare technology (WT), defined as digital technology enabling individuals to live securely, actively and independently at home, is often viewed as a solution to care resource shortages. This solution discourse has increasingly been problematised, and ethical issues specifically connected to WT have emerged, e.g., regarding quality of care. The ex...
Introduction
The gerontological literature suggests that external housing-related control beliefs (HCB) influence activities of daily living (ADL) among older people, but knowledge is scarce for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD). This longitudinal study aimed to explore the directions of the relationship between external HCB and ADL among people...
Accessible housing for the aging population is important, but large-scale reliable information on accessibility problems in ordinary housing is lacking. This study aimed to describe the prevalence of environmental barriers and analyze potential accessibility problems in the Swedish housing stock and to evaluate the validity and representativeness o...
Accessible housing plays a crucial role in supporting aging in place, yet Japan lacks adequate tools for assessing housing accessibility among older adults. This study describes the process of translating and adapting the environmental component checklist of the Swedish Housing Enabler instrument for valid use in Japan. During translation to the Ja...
Background
Around 15% of the global population live with some form of disabilities and experience worse health outcomes, less participation in the community and are part of fewer activities outside the home. Outdoor mobility interventions aim to improve the ability to move, travel and orient outside the home and could influence the number of activi...
För att överbrygga gapet mellan forskning och praktik har initiativ för att transformera kunskap blivit allt viktigare. Med transformation av kunskap avser vi förhållningssätt och aktiviteter där forskare och andra samhällsaktörer samverkar för att syntetisera, utbyta, skapa, överföra och tillämpa kunskap för att öka den praktiska användningen av f...
COVID-19 has affected the daily activities of people worldwide. Recommendations introduced to reduce the spread of the virus led to increased use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to meet everyday needs. Such rapid digitalization had not been seen previously and not been possible to study before. Hence, this study aimed to identif...
The objectives were to translate the University of Jyvaskyla Active Aging Scale (UJACAS) to Swedish, to establish semantic equivalence and evaluate psychometric properties for use among persons 55 years and older in Sweden. The UJACAS contains 17 items to be self-assessed regarding goals, abilities, opportunity, and activity. Psychometric propertie...
Introduction:
Residential reasoning is a complex process that includes decisions on whether to age in place or to relocate. Ageing in the Right Place (ARP), a web-based housing counselling service was created to support older adults in this process. The study's aim was to evaluate the usability of the ARP as regards content, design, specific funct...
Our lives can be characterized as periods of stability, alternating with events that bring about change of both practical and psychological nature which require some life adjustment. The scope and depth of such life transitions are related to the kind of event, but also to whether it is perceived as positive or negative, occurs together with other...
While previous research shows that older adults choose to relocate to a different home for numerous reasons (e.g., changes in the household composition, health decline), little is known about the influence of economic factors. The economic situation on aggregated level can influence the individual in more ways than by consumer demand and income, fo...
For the last decades, interdisciplinary researchers have studied housing preferences of various groups in the population. To contribute to knowledge on the needs and preferences of the aging population we have established a cohort (N=1,509) of adults, 55 years or older, who are considering relocation. The baseline survey included questions on the c...
While research indicates that indoor lighting, exposure to daylight, physical activity, and sleep interact to influence functioning, mood, and daily rhythm, strategies are needed to support behavioral changes among older adults who often spend more time at home after retirement. The objective was to design a web-based course to encourage behavior c...
Objective
Based on findings from four transdisciplinary original research studies on housing issues for the aging population, whereof three had a particular focus on marginalized groups, we report a co-produced synthesis of implications from a collaborative research project on socially sustainable housing policies. Researchers and non-academic part...
Posed 16 years ago in a much-cited editorial by gerontologist, Alan Walker, “Why involve older people in research?” is a question that has since inspired researchers in many countries and from diverse disciplines. In Sweden, researchers and older people have been collaborating in the 6-year UserAge research programme, focusing on user involvement i...
Background:
Many factors influence housing choices among older adults, but far from all have been identified. There is little systematic analysis that has included economic factors and virtually no knowledge about the interplay among perceived costs of moving, health status, and the mobility rate of older homeowners. It is currently unclear whethe...
Financial security influences good quality housing, health, and longevity, but few recent studies of the financial aspects of aging in place have been published. We explored strategies used to age in place and thoughts about future housing among women aged 65 and older living with a low pension in Sweden. We conducted semi-structured qualitative in...
Background: While citizen science approaches are emerging within both social and health sciences, projects aimed at improving the living conditions of older adults remain rare. To enable forward-looking housing provision for the ageing population, valid and detailed information is needed on environmental barriers in the housing stock. Moreover, to...
Objective: Based on findings from four transdisciplinary research studies on housing issues for the aging population, whereof three had a particular focus on marginalized groups, we report a synthesis of implications from a collaborative research project on socially sustainable housing policies. Researchers and non-academic partners in the ongoing...
The impact of Parkinson's disease (PD) on workforce participation has received little attention even though demographic, lifestyle, and political changes together will result in an increased burden of PD on the working-age population. In this study, we investigate workforce survival after a PD diagnosis, as well as what demographic factors that are...
Neighborhood support can improve aging in place for older adults, but research on the role of public housing staff in supporting older tenants is lacking. Twenty-nine participants (janitors, n = 11; maintenance staff, n = 18) collected data about critical situations among older tenants residing in apartments in Sweden. Modifying the Critical Incide...
Research is needed to understand attitudes toward and adoption of the broad range of technologies available to support active and healthy aging in different generations. The present article gives an overview of the GenerationTech survey and sample, and describes attitudes and acceptance related to technology in general and as a means to support act...
BACKGROUND
Many factors influence housing choices among older adults, but far from all have been identified. There is little systematic analysis that has included economic factors and virtually no knowledge about the interplay among perceived costs of moving, health status, and the mobility rate of older homeowners. It is currently unclear whether...
The ongoing digitalisation of societies, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to increased efforts to ensure the digital inclusion of older adults. Digital inclusion strategies throughout the COVID-19 pandemic predominantly focused on increasing access and basic digital literacy of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for all...
Background:
The complex nature of late-stage Parkinson's requires multiagency support and leads to an increased burden on family members who assume a multiplicity of responsibilities. The aim of this study is to further understand the lived experiences of family-caregivers and their perception of, and satisfaction with, service provision.
Methods...
To achieve the widespread policy goal of active aging, it is central that older adults can participate and be independent in activities both in and outside the home. Life-space mobility refers to the extent of the area where a person performs different activities, including frequency and level of independence, and is considered an indicator of acti...
Objective
The aim is to describe and reflect upon potentially pandemic-related impact on self-assessments of active ageing. As part of the baseline data collection in the Prospective RELOC-AGE (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04765696) study, telephone interviews, including the University of Jyvaskyla Active Aging Scale (UJACAS) were conducted with 820 peopl...
Objective
The objective of this paper is to describe the initial phase of a long-term collaboration initiative between a municipality and the Faculty of Medicine at a university in Sweden. The overall ambition of the collaboration is to strengthen the quality of care for older people. The concrete goal is to equip academically trained registered he...
As people age the home environment becomes increasingly important. Retirement commonly leads to spending more time in one’s home, and relocating from your own home in older age could be associated with reduced health or wellbeing. The relationship between home and person is complex and perceived aspects of one’s housing such as social, emotional an...
This is the protocol for a Campbell systematic review. The objectives are as follows: to assess the efficacy of interventions aiming to improve outdoor mobility for people with disability and to explore if the efficacy varies between different populations and different intervention components.
Background
User involvement in research has rapidly increased and is often a precondition to obtain research funding. Benefits such as effectiveness and increased relevance of research are described in the literature, but the evidence to support this is weak. Little is known about ageing and health researchers’ experiences and perspectives towards...
Background
The Parkinson Disease (PD) Home Diary (HD) is a commonly used clinical outcome measure, but it has not been extensively compared to direct assessments by experienced observers.
Objective
Validation of patient-reported HD by investigating the agreement between motor state assessments by patients and observers.
Methods
This observational...
Based on a commission by one of the Swedish Research Council, which has high ambitions to strengthen the collaboration between academia and society, this study aimed to reveal how researchers describe the collaboration with partners outside the university in research proposals. Globally, collaboration is advocated to bridge research-practice gaps a...
Background
While the importance of involving older people in research is increasingly acknowledged, quantitative studies exploring the perspectives of larger samples of older people who take an active role in research on ageing and health are scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate the awareness of and attitudes towards public involvement...
Objective
The objective of this paper is to describe the initial phase of a long-term collaboration initiative between a municipality and the medical faculty at a university in Sweden. The overall ambition of the collaboration is to strengthen the quality of care for older people. The concrete goal is to equip academically trained registered health...
Research is needed to understand attitudes and adoption of the broad range of technologies currently available to support active and healthy ageing, in different generations. Previous and current research tends to neglect the diversity of products and services, as well as typically focuses on current older people rather than those representing futu...
Background and Aims
There is evidence that housing issues are associated with health outcomes as people age, but little is known in this respect regarding the specific population of people with Parkinson's disease (PD). The objective of this literature review was to identify and analyze the knowledge gap concerning people with PD and housing issues...
Background
To pursue high quality research, successful participant recruitment is essential, but recruitment rates are often low. This is specifically true in target populations with impairments, for instance, among stroke survivors. Previous studies focusing on recruitment have mainly relied on information from professionals, and there is therefor...
Falls are a major public health problem among older people. Even if the outcome of a fall is not fatal, it may be a traumatic experience with both physical and psychological consequences. However, there is a lack of studies examining how falls in the home may impact the perception of the home. To compare perceptions of the home between those who ha...
Background
Although housing accessibility is associated with important health outcomes in other populations, few studies have addressed this in a Parkinson’s disease population.
Aim
To determine the most severe environmental barriers in terms of housing accessibility problems and how these evolved over 3 years among people with Parkinson’s disease...
Background:
Due to demographic changes and a strained public sector operating in many countries globally, informal care is increasing. Currently, at least 1.3 million adults in Sweden regularly provide help, support and/or care to a family member/significant other. With no sign of an imminent decrease in their caring activities, it is important th...
Background:
While housing and neighborhood features have the potential to impact opportunities for active aging, there is a lack of knowledge related to how older people reason regarding their housing situation and how housing and fulfillment of relocation are associated with active and healthy aging.
Objective:
The objectives of Prospective REL...
BACKGROUND
Background: While housing and neighbourhood features have the potential to impact opportunities for active ageing, there is a lack of knowledge related to how older people reason regarding their housing situation and how housing and fulfilment of relocation are associated with active and healthy ageing.
OBJECTIVE
Objective: The objectiv...
This study examined equity in physical activity (PA) by investigating whether perceived opportunity for PA was associated with willingness to be more active. Among community residents (75, 80, or 85 years old, n = 962) perceived opportunity for PA (poor and good), willingness to be more active (not at all, a bit, and a lot), and level of PA (low, m...
Orientation towards application, transdisciplinarity and social distribution are prominent ideas when policy prescribes how to conduct research on complex, real-world issues. Issues dealt with in ageing research are both epistemologically complex and politically contentious. By using the metaphor of ‘travelling ideas,' we have followed these ideas...
While a broad spectrum of technologies is integrated in everyday life and routines, most research on ageing, health and technology has focused on attitudes toward and adoption of digital technologies including e-health, or home based monitoring systems. The aim of this study was to explore differences and similarities in attitudes and experiences w...
Den åldrande befolkningen har identifierats som en samhällsutmaning. En tydlig utveckling inom forskning om sådana utmaningar är krav på medverkan från patientgrupper, brukarorganisationer och andra aktörer utanför akademin. Syftet med artikeln är att introducera en modell för utformning och värdering av samverkan mellan akademiska forskare och akt...
Purpose
To further understand social and leisure (SL) participation after stroke and how it can be supported in a long-term perspective, this study aims to deepen the understanding of strategies used by long-term stroke survivors in relation to SL activities.
Materials and methods
The study has a qualitative design, using a grounded theory approac...
In the late stage of Parkinson’s disease (PD), there is an increasing disease burden not only for the patients but also for their informal caregivers and the health and social services systems. The aim of this study was to explore experiences of late-stage PD patients’ and their informal caregivers’ satisfaction with care and support, in order to b...
While accessible housing is known as important to promote healthy ageing, the societal issue of providing accessible housing for the ageing population bears the characteristics of a “wicked problem”. The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of crucial variables for decision-making about the provision of accessible housing for the ag...
Introduction
Adults with spinal cord injuries are living longer than previously, and a majority are living in ordinary housing in the community. Housing accessibility is important for maintaining independent occupational performance for this population, but knowledge in this area is insufficient. We investigated housing adaptations and current acce...
Housing is the main spatial context for aging, important for well-being, a sense of identity and independence in daily life. Yet, as people grow older housing needs change and knowledge about how people reason about their future home when they enter retirement age is lacking. This qualitative study presents findings that explored meaning of home an...
Scientifically validated tools to assess housing accessibility for older adults in Japan have been lacking. To address this, a rigorous procedure of adapting an existing housing assessment tool—the Housing Enabler, developed in Sweden—for valid use in Japan was conducted. The original tool was translated into the Japanese language, using establishe...
Citizen science is gaining momentum as an approach in many scientific fields. However, it is scarcely used in aging research. Since 2009 in Sweden, Public & Science (NGO) has coordinated an annual mass-experiment where thousands of school pupils have collected data that would have been impossible for researchers to collect on their own. Designed as...
New technologies are being touted as solutions to many societal challenges not least of which are ageing and health. However, the rapid development of new technologies is proceeding with little input from older adults. This presentation highlights the perceptions and attitudes of three age cohorts related to the continuous technological advancement...
Background
Research addressing perceptions of housing in people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) is rare, and existing instruments capturing perceived aspects of housing are rarely used. Perceived housing comprises of several domains and is associated with health in general older populations. One such domain is meaning of home, captured by the Meaning...
Background
Housing-related control beliefs are associated with aspects of health among older people in general. Research on Parkinson’s disease (PD) focusing on perceptions of the home are rare and instruments capturing perceived aspects of home have seldom been used.
Aims
To evaluate psychometric properties of the external Housing-related Control...
Background:
Rehabilitation pathways are crucial to reduce stroke-related disability. Motivational Interviewing (MI), as a person-centered complex intervention, aimed to empower and motivate, and could be a resource to improve rehabilitation outcomes for older stroke survivors. The IMAGINE project aims to assess the impact of MI, as a complement to...
There is some evidence that housing accessibility, external housing-related control beliefs (HCB) and activities of daily living (ADL) are associated in complex ways; however, these pathways have not been explored in younger old. The aim was to assess the role of external HCB in the relationship between housing accessibility and ADL by applying mod...
Introduction:
People with Parkinson's disease (PD) have lower life satisfaction (LS) than healthy peers. No study has yet identified predictors of LS in people with PD. Such information would be valuable for health care and future interventions that aim to maintain or increase LS.
Aim:
To examine how LS evolved in people with PD over a 3-year pe...
Background:
External housing-related control beliefs (HCB) and general self-efficacy (GSE) influence different health outcomes in the general ageing population, but there is no information of their role in people ageing with Parkinson's disease (PD). This study aimed to longitudinally assess the role of external HCB and GSE on the association betw...
A large proportion of the Swedish housing stock was built when policymakers and housing industry rarely considered housing accessibility issues. More than 80% of Swedish citizens aged 65+ live in dwellings built before 1980. Using detailed research data from onsite observations, we explored housing accessibility issues for people with different com...