title: Complex negotiations: the lived experience of enacting agency after a stroke.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This qualitative, longitudinal, descriptive study aimed to understand the lived experience of enacting agency, and to describe the phenomenon of agency and the meaning structure of the phenomenon during the year after a stroke. Agency is defined as making things happen in everyday life through one's actions.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study followed six persons (three men and three women, ages 63 to 89), interviewed on four separate occasions. Interview data were analysed using the Empirical Phenomenological Psychological method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The main findings showed that the participants experienced enacting agency in their everyday lives after stroke as negotiating different characteristics over a span of time, a range of difficulty, and in a number of activities, making these negotiations complex. The four characteristics described how the participants made things happen in their everyday lives through managing their disrupted bodies, taking into account their past and envisioning their futures, dealing with the world outside themselves, and negotiating through internal dialogues.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This empirical evidence regarding negotiations challenges traditional definitions of agency and a new definition of agency is proposed. Understanding clients' complex negotiations and offering innovative solutions to train in real-life situations may help in the process of enabling occupations after a stroke.
authors.affiliation: Division of Occupational Therapy, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet , Huddinge , Sweden.
authors.forename: Aileen L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Bergström
authors.forename: Gunilla
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Eriksson
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Asaba
authors.forename: Anette
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Erikson
authors.forename: Kerstin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tham
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology*; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017008:Negotiating; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000523:psychology; D012649:Self Concept; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000534:rehabilitation; D020521:Stroke / Q000523:psychology*; D000071939:Stroke Rehabilitation
keywords: occupational science; occupational therapy; phenomenology; qualitative method; rehabilitation