Barbara Groot

1 Introduction Moving into a residential care facility is often a deeply emotional experience, both for new residents and their significant others. During the transition, residents may face a loss of agency, social connectedness, and sense of home (O'Neill and Ryan 2023), while their significant others may experience a complex mix of guilt, grief, and relief (Afram et al. 2015; Robinson and Fisher 2023).

The study contributes to the body of knowledge about the relationship between the institutional long-term care environment and the activity and mobility of older adults. The findings can be used to assess and improve long-term care environments for the activity and mobility of older adults in various settings and by several stakeholders.

Introduction Participatory action research (PAR) is an approach that promotes service user involvement as a means to improve research results and to bring about a positive change in the lives of the participants and their community (Borda, Reference Borda, Reason and Bradbury2006; Wright and Kongats, Reference Wright and Kongats2018; Abma et al., Reference Abma, Banks, Cook, Dias, Madsen, Springett and Wright2019).