“I’m aging faster”: social participation as experienced by individuals aging with a traumatic brain injury

ABSTRACT

Objectives

1) To get an insight into the experience of aging with traumatic brain injury (TBI), and 2) explore intervention avenues perceived as promising for the social participation of this population.

Method

Through an exploratory descriptive study, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with aging TBI survivors recruited in a nonprofit community organization whose mission is to support the social participation of people living with TBI. Thematic analysis was done on qualitative data, using a hybrid approach of deductive and inductive analysis.

Results

Ten aging TBI survivors with an average age of 64.9 years were interviewed. Participants expressed the perception of declining faster and with greater limitations than their fellow seniors unchallenged by TBI but also of having social participation opportunities due to their condition. A list of ten facilitators (e.g., doing activities in synch with life story) and five barriers (e.g., unequal levels of disability) to their social participation emerged.

Conclusion

Social participation is crucial to TBI-affected individuals’ healthy aging. Nonprofit community organizations should offer opportunities for participation, mobilize environmental resources, foster self-confidence, and support the achievement of meaningful personal projects to enable the social participation of people aging with TBI.

KEYWORDS:

• Traumatic brain injury
• social participation
• older adults
• healthy aging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was made possible by a research grant from Société Inclusive. ST is a research fellow of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CHIR) and the Canadian Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) (Transition to leadership award, 2020-2023). PS and OP both hold a master’s scholarship from the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation and Social Integration (CIRRIS). MEL is a Research Scholar Junior 1 from the Fond de recherche du Québec - Santé (FRQS);Société inclusive;