Aging Well with Disability: Successful Aging Among Individuals with SCI

Life expectancy among individuals with SCI has increased such that many people with SCI are surviving into older adulthood. An obstacle to understanding how quality of life (QoL) evolves over time in the context of aging with SCI is that SCI research has largely been cross-sectional or circumscribed to examining change over short time periods, resulting in relatively poor knowledge of developmental trajectories into older adulthood and of factors that support (or detract from) the maintenance of QoL as individuals age with SCI. Furthermore, studies have not probed the experiences of older adults to incorporate their lay perspectives. We propose a mixed methods study to investigate indices of successful aging (SA) among individuals with SCI. Quantitative growth and multilevel models will examine longitudinal change in domains of QoL while qualitative analyses of focus groups will obtain perspectives of SA from older adults with SCI. Triangulation of methods will help to shed light on SA as a multi-faceted developmental phenomenon that unfolds over time and contribute to knowledge of mechanisms that influence QoL in the context of aging with SCI. Characterizing SA and its determinants may identify malleable factors and inform future interventions to promote well-being in the context of SCI.