Facilitating Aging-in-Place for Older African Americans in Southeastern Virginia

The findings in this study confirm that using educational materials to include home modifications, community resources, and education/training can increase the life-satisfaction and improve the older African American adults' ability to live at home safely in a relatively short time frame. This project has important implications for future research for the older African American adult and its relevance in occupational therapy, housing, care, and healthcare expenditures. Interventions that have been shown to reduce a person's disability status can potentially "reduce the use of home-based care services and thereby reduce (the growth rate of) expenditure“.9 The data analyzed in this paper synthesized knowledge in the field of both health and occupational therapy by acknowledging that a simple educational program could lead to increased life satisfaction and performance in everyday activities. This project was also client-centered by utilizing the COPM. The COPM allowed the participants to identify no more than three occupational problems and rate them. These occupational deficits were then addressed to increase their independence aging-in-place. The effect of utilizing this assessment and the participant selecting specific items within the educational materials was that the participants were also more motivated to participate and work towards reaching their goals. Active participation and motivation would have been limited if the principal investigator had selected their goals or limited them to just one occupational performance deficit.