Fortologiese dimensies by bejaardes met alzheimer se siekte of rumatoide artritis

English: Since the 1980s, positive Psychology has become more prominent in contrast to the negative focus that characterized the early development of Psychology. Increasingly, the focus is not only on the origin, nature and treatment of dysfunctional behaviour, namely psychopathology, but also on situations in which the person can face his or her circumstances. The reasons for health rather than the causes of illness are also being investigated. Aaron Antonovsky (1979) did pioneer work by doing research on health, and introduced his construct "salutogenesis" to the world. Many studies relating to his work followed. The concept of Antonovsky has been extended and adapted to investigate human strengths. The term psychofortology was introduced by Wissing and Van Eeden (1999) to specifically investigate the factors underlying the psychological strengths within the individual. The purpose of this study is to determine how the theory of psychofortology is established, should a chronic and life threatening stressor be present. A comparative study was therefore done to investigate the role of the presence of psychofortological factors in the elderly who suffer from Alzheimer's disease, rheumatoid arthritis or neither of these diseases. A literature study was conducted on the nature of each of the constructs in order to understand the interaction between the illness, psychofortological factors and the construct of quality of life of the aged. A qualitative analysis approach was used to determine the subjective life experience of each of the study participants. No significant differences between the three groups under investigation regarding the experience of quality of life could be shown. The conclusion is that in the aged who are subjected to different stressors, the presence of fortological factors enable them to experience a positive quality of life. Due to the practical restrictions of the study (inter alia, the small studygroup) it is recommended that this research be repeated on a larger scale.