12 Lessons from Leisure-Time Budget Research Implications for Practice Jerome F. Singleton
What people do with their free time has been studied by a variety of authors from various disciplines during the last 50 years. These studies have attempted to illustrate patterns of behaviors, often using questionnaires. These investigations make observations but often there is minimal link to professional practice. This chapter attempts to illustrate how the findings from time-budget studies have led to the understanding of activities in later life. It ends with the development of a protocol working with older individuals who have been diagnosed as having senile dementia of the Alzheimer 's type (SDAT) .
BACKGROUND There have been various studies investigating the effects of aging on housing, preparation for retirement, leisure activities, and victimization of older individuals (Forbes, Jackson & Kraus, 1987; Kaplan, 1979; Keddy & Singleton, 1991; MacNeil & Teague, 1987; Mitic, Farquharson & Singleton, Jerome F. Singleton • School of Health and Human Performance, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3J5. Time Use Research in the Social Sciences, editedby Wendy E. Pentland, Andrew S. Harvey, M. Powell Lawton, and Mary Ann McColl. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 1999. 245