Environmental barriers and housing accessibility problems for people with Parkinson’s disease: A three-year perspective

Abstract

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.

Material and Methods

138 participants were included (men = 67%; mean age = 68 years). The most severe environmental barrier were identified by the Housing Enabler instrument and ranked in descending order. The paired t-test was used to analyse changes in accessibility problems over time.

Results

The top 10 barriers remained largely unchanged over 3 years, but with notable changes in order and magnitude. ‘No grab bar in hygiene area’ and ‘Stairs only route’ were top-ranked in generating accessibility problems at baseline but decreased significantly (p = 0.041; p = 0.002) at follow-up. ‘Difficulties to reach refuse bin’ was top-ranked at follow-up, with a significant increase (p < 0.001) of related accessibility problems.

Conclusions and Significance

The new knowledge about how accessibility problems evolve over time could be used by occupational therapists to recommend more effective housing adaptations taking the progressive nature of Parkinson’s disease into account. On societal level, the results could be used to address accessibility problems systematically.

Keywords:

• Home modification
• occupational therapy
• P-E fit
• public health perspective

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants of the HHPD project for their contributions to research and to enabling this study. This study was conducted within the context of the Centre for Ageing and Supportive Environments (CASE) and the Strategic Research Area in neuroscience (MultiPark) at Lund University, Sweden. The first author’s (NA) learning process was supported by the National Graduate School of Competitive Science on Ageing and Health (SWEAH).

Disclosure statement

The Housing Enabler is a commercial product sold by Veten & Skapen HB and Slaug Enabling Development with Iwarsson and Slaug as copyright holders and owners. The remaining authors have no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data used in this study contains sensitive information about the study participants and they did not provide consent for public data sharing. The current approval by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Lund, Sweden (nos. 2012/558 and 2015/611) does not include data sharing. Data that supports the findings in this study could be shared on request from a qualified academic investigator for the sole purpose of replicating the present study, provided the data transfer is in agreement with EU legislation on the general data protection regulation and approval by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority.

Additional information

Funding

The HHPD project was supported by the Strategic Research Area in neuroscience (MultiPark) at Lund University; the Swedish Research Council [grant number 2015-02616]; Neuro; Ribbingska Foundation in Lund; Greta and Johan Kock Foundation; Swedish Parkinson Foundation; Norrbacka-Eugenia Foundation and the Crafoord Foundation.