Governing Old Age: The 'Case Managed' Older Person

This article applies a Foucauldian approach to an examination of contemporary policy and practice towards older people, specifically a model of case management designed to manage older people 'at risk' of hospital admission. The article proceeds by reviewing old age policy over three historical time periods, emphasizing discontinuities and mutations, in an attempt to problematize the principles underlying case management. It then draws on empirical data from a study of the micropractices of case management, focusing on the construction of expertise, the subjectification of the 'at risk' older person and the interplay between expert and patient. The productive and repressive aspects of this interaction are both discussed and resistances to it by the older people are seen to take the nuanced form of imposing family values upon the professional encounter.