Home environment and frailty in very old adults

IntroductionEnvironmental gerontology proposes that people’s home environment (HE) influences their quality of life at older ages, since older people spend most of their time at home [28]. If an individual’s loss of competence can no longer be compensated for by the existing HE conditions, or by the person’s subjective HE experience because of limited coping options, a so-called person-environment misfit occurs [28]. This imbalance can lead to increased stress, restricted autonomy and health decline [28]. As frailty is characterized by an increased vulnerability to external stressors [13] and is associated with…