Table 3.

Health literacy theme and subthemes of barriers impacting individuals aging with spinal cord injury

Theme	Subthemes	Participant quotes reflecting subthemes
Health literacy	a. Continuum of health literacy	“With medications or it. I mean I have a copy somewhere but you know. I can't listthem all out. I don't even know half the names of them you know.” (WS 77-83) “Even if I do the exercises twice that day it still it tightens you up, it's like you have to move, you have to really move… It seems like you have to do them like every hour or something because otherwise you stiff right away.” (VP 1187-1188 & 1202-1204) “Yeah. When the doctor…when the surgeon told me, ‘you're not going to walk again and here's the reason’ and he gave me, I guess what I needed. I needed the scientific basis, being a scientific-type person, and he explained what was going on in the spinal cord and why things don't happen and all the, the scar tissue and the interfering molecules and whatnot.” (AB 2170-2177)
	b. Degree of problem-solvingskills and abilities	“I always describe having a disability as having to problem solve pretty much everyday. In some little way, somebody with a disability has to problem solve.” Raising a 5-year-old son – “How do I change him? How do I get to be able to change him? Howdo I pick him up? How do I carry him? How do I protect him?” Learned to problemsolve as a phys-ed teacher and has applied that to raising his son; has taken advantageof what he's learned from his disability in how he designed his house and taking careof his son. (RW) “Well first of all I can't reach anything...I liked my life better before obviously.” (JS)