O rio da vida no envelhecimento (cri)ativo: estressores, recursos de saúde e senso de coerência na longevidade com idosos do Programa Idoso Feliz Participa Sempre (PIFPS) da Universidade Federal do Amazonas MANAUS–AM 2025

Abstract

This dissertation investigated the health resources mobilized by long-lived older adults participating in the “Idoso Feliz Participa Sempre” Program (PIFPS/UFAM) to engage in and maintain participation in body practices and physical activities (PCAF) throughout their lives. Using the metaphor of the “river of life” as a symbolic and methodological framework, the research articulated life story narratives with Antonovsky’s salutogenic theory, focusing on the pillars of the Sense of Coherence (comprehensibility, malleability, and meaningfulness) as key to understanding the sustained engagement of the elderly in PCAF. This qualitative study employed the life story method and used intentional sampling, including participants aged 80 and older. The analysis revealed that, despite facing life stressors—such as loss, migration, hard labor, and discrimination—these older adults developed internal and contextual resources that supported their involvement in collective practices of care, movement, and belonging. The PIFPS program emerged as a space of welcome, visibility, and resistance, reframing the aging body as one that is constantly (re)invented. The findings indicate that longevity with satisfactory life conditions depends not only on the absence of disease, but also on the continuous construction of meaning, social connection, and access to public policies that promote health. The study reinforces the role of body practices as mediators of well-being in old age and proposes the valorization of life stories as tools for listening, recognition, and social transformation.