Impact of vision and hearing impairment on social life in old age

Bevilling: 1.442.000 kr.

The purpose is to provide in-depth knowledge about the social aspects of vision and hearing impairment in old age through ethnographic methods.

Pedagogical anthropologist Jon Dag Rasmussen examines the impact of vision and hearing impairment on social life in old age. Many old people find their everyday life to be changing due to sensory loss. Approx. 800,000 Danes suffer from hearing impairment, 80% of whom are men. Vision impairment usually begins around the age of 40–50, and eye diseases which may lead to vision impairment increase from the age of 60.

The project asks how the loss of sight and hearing impacts the daily lives of old people on a subjective, social, existential and practical level. It seeks to answer what happens when one’s relationship with the external world changes as well as one’s private world. In what ways do social conditions and communication change?

The project is Jon Dag Rasmussen’s postdoc project at the Danish School of Education, Anthropology and Education, Aarhus University in Emdrup.

The study is carried out in co-operation with associate professor Ida Wentzel Winther, Danish School of Education, Anthropology and Education and director Christine E. Swane at the EGV Foundation (Social Inclusion of Older Adults).

Results will be published in scientific journals and in Danish in an EGV report and an article in Tidsskriftet Gerontologi (Danish periodical published by the Danish Society of Gerontology).

The EGV Foundation

Linnésgade 18, 1
DK-1361 København K
Denmark

egv@egv.dk
(+45) 5060 5460

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