++
“One thing they don’t tell you about growing old—you don’t feel old, you just feel like yourself. And it’s true. I don’t feel eighty-nine years old. I simply am eighty-nine years old.”
—Betty White
++
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this chapter, readers will be able to:
17-1. Articulate the value of leisure to older adults.
17-2. Compare relevant theories and frameworks of reference relevant to leisure in older adults.
17-3. Summarize how environments and health conditions can affect equity in choice, availability, and engagement in leisure for older adults.
17-4. Explain older adults’ participation in lifelong learning as leisure.
17-5. Select assessments relevant to occupational therapy when addressing leisure in older adults.
17-6. Create leisure interventions for older adults based on evaluation and shared goal-setting.
17-7. Understand how occupational therapy can collaborate with other professions to promote leisure in older adults.
++
Mini Case Study
Miss Mae is a cisgender divorced woman. She was in her late 60s when she began to experience depression. Her daughter, an avid track and field runner, took her to a fund-raising walk-and-run race. Miss Mae, as she is known to her friends, enjoyed the event so much that she began walking each day with a neighbor, then walking longer distances, and later running with a social running club. She eventually joined races around her community and is currently training for a half marathon with the help of her daughter. Miss Mae comments that she enjoys spending more time with her daughter, the social network she has built through running, and the positive changes she has noticed in her body and outlook. She hopes to continue training and racing as long as she can.
Provocative Questions
What are your first reactions to Miss Mae’s decision to take up running as an older adult?
How could this activity be considered a leisure occupation?
What roles might occupational therapy have in supporting her ability to participate in this activity?
++
Longevity and an increase in life expectancy have prompted calls for a paradigm shift that normalizes aging and avoids treating old age as a problem to be fixed (Calasanti & King, 2021; Sugar, 2019). The relationship between leisure and aging is relevant to such discussions, given links between leisure and older adults’ physical, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being (Nimrod & Shirira, 2014; Wang et al, 2013). Although commonly treated as a means instead of an end goal of intervention, leisure itself is a valuable treatment goal for occupational therapy treatment (Chen & Chippendale, 2018). As older adults embrace the transition from work to retirement, engagement in leisure activities also increases. Occupational therapists should consider the full role of leisure for older adults in complement with an occupational justice approach that centers on one’s right to engage in personally meaningful leisure (Bundy & Du Toit, 2018).
++