Mobility was extremely important for the people we spoke with. There was a range of ways in which people facilitated their mobility, such as having a walker, a scooter, a car or access to public transport. As people aged or had health problems which impacted on their ability to get around, mobility aids were indispensable for daily living. Mobility aids include walking frames, wheeled walkers or walking sticks. They were commonly used by people in their 80s and 90s but they were also important for people across a range of ages. For those who used them, having a walker facilitated their independence and helped them feel safer on their feet.
Lorna uses her wheeled walker for everything and feels that it helps her stay independent.
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I do a little pot garden because I live in the back of the house most of the time and it gives me something to look at when I look out the kitchen. So the wheelie goes everywhere, safer with that and it’s great for the shopping, hang the green bags on the handles, lift up the thing. I’m not too proud to take it with me everywhere but some people say, oh, people looking at me but I don’t care who sees me with it, it goes everywhere, it goes to choir. Amazing the help you get offered when you’ve got a wheelie, people coming out of supermarkets saying are you alright with that, oh yes, I’m fine thank you. And I can pop it in the boot and come home, where if you’ve got a supermarket trolley you’ve got to walk the trolley back and then you’ve got to walk back unaided. Where this is so safe I pop it in the boot and home I come, goes to church with me, I park it in the lobby of the church and I can – when I know I’ve got something to hold onto you see I’m fine, so that goes everywhere. It goes to bed at night with me, the mug of herbal tea and the mug of boiled water and the mobile phone I take to bed with me at night. And all of this helps me to stay independent and not worrying my family, because I believe the best asset I can give them is remain independent and well.
Shirley and Brian H cannot walk far without assistance. While Shirley can no longer go on bushwalks, she is thankful she has a walker so she can go places like the museum.
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Brian: I can’t walk very far, as far as I used to. Like as I said before I was a marathon runner when I was still over 40, but I can’t walk as far as I used to.
Shirley: As for me I just miss doing bush walks. I just love walking through the bush and even a walker doesn’t really take the paths through the forest and things like that.
Brian: We can walk some distance without aid but if it’s more than maybe 50 meters we will need some assistance.
Shirley: If I have my walker and have a sit down every now and again. But we went to the museum for the first time in four years last Saturday. Friday wasn’t it? Friday. I did have my walker, but I would never have got up from one floor to the next without the help of the walker.
Some people pointed out the negative aspects of using a walker because they can be heavy and cumbersome. They also spoke about the ways in which they are treated differently when using their walker in public places (see
Attitudes of others). Both Val and Robyn found their lack of mobility and use of a walker ‘demoralising’.
Robyn hates being reliant on a walker and feels it disempowers her.
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The biggest issue has been mobility. I found it quite demoralising, quite negative to actually be reliant on a walker to be able to get around. The question I ask myself, is why does that have such a significant impact on my sense of worth and it’s probably because I’ve been an independent individual all my life, who’s really self-reliant, initiating my own needs, never had to really rely on other people. All of a sudden, ageing has given me a physical barrier that has actually impacted on my capacity to be that independent. So, for instance, when I need to go to public meetings and talk to people about particular things that are relevant to the local community at that time, if I don’t take the walker, then it’s likely that there’ll be no chairs for me to be able to sit down on and I can’t maintain a stance for very long. The other issue is, that if I’m addressing the meeting or I’m facilitating the workshop, then to some extent it actually disempowers me in that role by the dependence that I have on something else.
Scooters were another helpful mobility aid which often replaced a car when people were no longer able to drive. However, scooters can be awkward in small spaces such as supermarket aisles and cannot go far before they need to be recharged.
Jack’s scooter has replaced his motorbike. He has found he can bring his scooter on the train and travel through country Victoria.
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What they do if the train is big enough to take the scooter near the seat I’m sitting it goes with me, if it’s not I take it to the nearest entrance and one of their chaps follows me, he escorts me to my seat, which is ridiculous I can do it myself, but that’s the rules of it. Then he takes my scooter up to the luggage caravan and they plug it into their – take my charger with me and they plug it into their power, so it’s fully charged when I get where I want to go. So that’s pretty good.
Being able to drive a car was extremely important for some people we spoke with. People who were still driving spoke about the independence this afforded them. Those who were not able to drive reflected on how dependent they were on friends, family, taxis and home care services to go places or do the simplest of things. Earl and Elaine both likened the thought of losing their license to having a limb removed.
Leonie is glad she can still drive as she does not have family and cannot rely on anybody else to drive her.
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Luckily, touch wood, I’m still driving so that’s fine and it doesn’t worry me whether it’s day time or night time. But at least you don’t have to rely on anyone else or a taxi or whatever, which is utterly frustrating. And the occasions when for one reason or another either I was told not to drive or it wasn’t feasible for one reason or another and I’ve asked for a taxi and it’s taken ages. That has nothing to do with my age or otherwise it’s just that it took so much longer than getting in the car driving.
So having your license and that freedom is extremely important to you?
It’s extremely important, I’d be absolutely shattered without it particularly without having a family that you can pressure if you like to take you here or there or somewhere else or pick you up or whatever. It would be absolutely devastating as far as I’m concerned.
So what sort of things do you use the car for?
Anything from going to the bank and food shopping and going to the hairdresser and going to the podiatrist, they’re all not very far away but they’re too far to walk and too short for a taxi who gets very crotchety full stop. So as far as I’m concerned it’s a blessing of any kind to have a car and to be able to drive it, wonderful.
People we spoke with were aware of their limits. If they did not feel confident driving they would let their partner drive, they would avoid traffic or would not drive long distances. Another reason people chose not to drive was the difficulty they experienced finding a parking spot. The requirements for an annual medical and practical driving test for people over 70 years vary across States and Territories in Australia. While participants saw these tests as a ‘pain,’ they were mostly accepted as a sensible idea.
Val has always believed old people should undergo regular driving tests, but when the test was recently introduced in the Northern Territory she says ‘it hurts’ and she hopes she will pass.
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One of the things I noticed the other day, I got my license renewal for the car. Now I’ve always believed that old people ought to be tested regularly for a driving license but in fact they haven’t been and I’ve got a friend who said to me that her husband at 94 was offered his license for five or 10 years and he laughed and said “I’ll take ten”, we laugh about that a lot. In fact he got five so he had a license until he was 95 but no testing up here. But the other day I got my renewal notice and there’s been a big change, I was offered it for a year and it said underneath that I get it until 2014. Underneath is a line “Persons over 70 are to be tested each year” now that’s never happened so that’s one thing I’ve noticed that I’ve always thought that was a good thing to be bringing in but now that it applies to me, it hurts in that I expect to be able to get my license again next year and I think in other states they have regular tests but we’ve never had it here and of course driving up here, for example, to drive here to [the supermarket] or drive even into the city, it’s not like driving in Melbourne, is it?
Several men we spoke with said that not driving was okay with them. Richard no longer looks forward to driving for the joy of it, and while Hans used to drive a beautiful MG he feels he needs to forget about cars. Brian X explains that if he cannot drive in the years to come it is something he will just have to accept.
Brian X accepts that he may have to give up his license. It takes a lot longer to get anywhere on public transport but he says he has plenty of time.
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There’s still plenty of people that still drive into their 80s and some in their 90s but I would be more than willing to give my license up if I found that I couldn’t cope anymore. I would hate to have on my conscience being the cause of somebody’s accident.
The bus services here are pretty good. I won’t drive out to the hospital when I go to see the specialists out there. I won’t drive the car out there because you can’t get a park. So I just get one bus to Casuarina and another one from the interchange at Casuarina to the hospital and it’s good. You know, it might take two hours to get there and back before and after your appointment but I’ve got plenty of time.
Public transport was an important way to get around for some younger seniors. They appreciated the reduced ticket price and recent improvements such as the trams being level with the platform. The negative aspects of public transport include being unreliable, not safe at night and too crowded in peak hour.
Accessing free public transport is important for
Edith to do her voluntary work but she does not feel safe going out at night.
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Well, some people are lucky. They might be able to afford to run a car still if they’re getting help from children who are helping them towards that. But I would never have been able to afford to run a car. I don’t have a car, I’ve never had a car, so at least with public transport, well now, because I have got the old-age pension, I think I was still getting it with the Newstart, but I can’t remember, because in the daytime now, you get the free travel between nine and three-thirty and all weekend. I mean, that’s a big help to me because I come in here and I do voluntary work, so if you go in between those hours where you still get the free travel public transport, that means that you’re not paying out for fares to come and do your voluntary work.
I don’t travel on public transport at night, I don’t go anywhere at night, really, because there are too many dangers out there in the world today, whereas when we were children, you used to be able to go dancing at night and do things that you enjoy, which I can’t do any more.
Some people with limited mobility could not manage public transport. Len cannot walk to the bus stop and relies heavily on his car. Hans does not drive and is dependent on home care services to do his fortnightly shopping. People with severe mobility problems could not physically get into a car. In these cases they needed ambulance transport services to get to outpatient appointments.
At the age of 89
Hans cannot drive or take public transport. He is pragmatic about his lack of mobility and is happy to use the home care services available to him.
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I know there are buses but the whole thing is to get there is another thing. Say for instance now I have [a home care service] to take me every fortnight do some shopping. Now you can say if my walking was very good I could walk to the bus and then back again but then there again, when you do your shopping it would be very awkward to go and look for a bus with your shopping, you can’t do that. It’s impossible and then you’ve got to be brought to a certain spot and then you’ve got to be taken back from that certain spot. That’s the only suitable time.
So that solution for you is, so you get help from the home care services?
Yes that is right. At my age, if I was 70 I’d be still alright, I could go by bus but not now because my movement isn’t good enough to go to the bus, wait there, go to the shop and come back again, wait there. That is alright when you’re 70 but when you are 89/90, it’s totally different.
So what does that do for your sense of independence? How does that make you feel not being able to get in the car or go down to the shop when you want?
Well I just have accepted the fact that is just a fact and you can’t change that. Even I had plenty of cars in my time and I’ve driven since 1950s up till I came back here in the Northern Territory but as it is now I got no license and even if I had a car I don’t feel confident enough to drive and I don’t think I should drive because you’re not quick enough anymore and something could happen. I mean it’s not right anymore. It doesn’t work anymore and that’s why I’ve got the right idea, that’s forget about a car but you’re dependent on somebody else and that’s the only solution and there’s nothing else you can do about it and so you have to forget about things.
So does it make you feel isolated in your home or do you feel okay?
No, I don’t think that factor comes into it because I know every fortnight I write down what I want, every fortnight it works out, it has been working out for more than a year now and I don’t feel lonely about it and if I have to go to the doctor, like sometimes you do, then you ring [the home care service] and they come along and they bring you to it and bring you back and that suits me and there’s nothing else. I mean there’s nothing else I need for that matter.
People who lived within a short walking distance to a variety of shops and amenities found it extremely useful in their older years. Barrie is worried about new housing developments which are attractive for older people who are downsizing but are not close to any transport networks or shopping centres (see [Housing](../experience-ageing/housing)).
Barrie emphasises the importance of transport for having social contact, and the difficulties people have relying on each other when they have a decreasing circle of friends.
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I mean, there’s one of them, as you go along this side of the railway line, in an easterly direction, there’s a couple of very large settlements of houses and which have been very difficult to get to the city if you don’t have a motor car. There’s no shopping centre between here and where they are. You know, that sort of thing. And I know that it’s a real problem because all of the resources that are available for old people for travel are exhausted by health services. Getting to the doctor, getting to the hospital, x-rays, all that sort of stuff. I mean, I accept that’s terribly important, but there is another level in which their inclusion and their social contacts and those sorts of things are, I think, they just suddenly sort of became, for us, quite an issue. There’s very little governments can do about it, because the health thing is so big that that uses all the resources.
But no, it’s pretty much like a lot of these things – I think I mentioned before – it depends who your friends have been and what you’ve done before and how you – What is probably a decreasing circle of friends because of people dying or moving away, that sort of decreasing number of people, how many are still resources in terms of being able to help with transport or something.
International and interstate travel was important for some people, particularly those in their 60s and 70s. This became harder, however, with increasing age and as physical mobility became more restricted. Some people in their 80s and 90s were no longer interested in travelling while others tried new forms of travel they had never experienced such as a cruise. For example, Richard had never enjoyed tours because they ‘confine your mobility’. However, he and his wife recently decided to explore Indo China and joined a tour group, which made the process much easier.