The Culture of Long Term Care: Nursing Home Ethnography

by J Neil Henderson, Maria D. Vesperi

Overview

This is the only collection of its kind to offer an inside view of life and work in contemporary nursing homes with the purpose of developing a theory of the culture of long term care. The anthropological research in nursing homes presented here produces a seldom seen native view of patients, staff, and the day-to-day workings of American nursing homes. The use of ethnographic methods penetrates the reality barriers found in industry descriptions, muck-raking discourse, and general societal aversion toward nursing homes. The tensions found between and within staff culture and patient culture are explored in terms of adaptations to institutional life in the context of current policy and the larger American ageist culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897894227
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/30/1995
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

J. NEIL HENDERSON, a medical anthropologist and noted authority on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, is Associate Professor in Psychiatry and faculty in the Department of Community and Family Health, College of Public Health, and at the Suncoast Gerontology Center, College of Medicine, University of South Florida. He has authored numerous articles on the cultural context of dementing disease and is the editor of the Jourbanal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology.

MARIA D. VESPERI, a cultural anthropologist, is Associate Professor of Anthropology at New College of the University of South Florida in Sarasota. She is a former member of the St. Petersburg Times editorial board and author of City of Green Benches: Growing Old In a New Downtown (1985).

Table of Contents

Foreword by Philip B. Stafford
Introduction
Perspective on Ethnographic Methods, Analysis and Findings
Nursing Home Research Comes of Age: Toward an Ethnological Perspective on Long Term Care by Maria D. Vesperi
Perspective and Story in Nursing Home Ethnography by Jaber F. Gubrium
Qualitative Research as a Tool Revealing Inappropriate Medicalization of Aging in Nursing Home Care by J. Neil Henderson
You Say Respondent, I Say Informant: What Stories Told by Informants Can Tell Us by Lisa Groger
Ethnography and the Nursing Home Ombudsman by Lynn D. Mason
In and Out of Bounds: The Ethics of Respect in Studying Nursing Homes by Joel Savishinsky
Ethics in the Nursing Home: Cases, Choices, and Issues by Renée Rose Shields
The Head Nurse as Key Informant: How Beliefs and Institutional Pressure Structure Dementia Care by Athena McLean and Margaret Perkinson
Staff/Resident Life
Assessing Types of Residential Accommodation for the Elderly: Liminality and Communitas by Barbara Hornum
Relatives as Trouble: Nursing Home Aides and Patient's Families by Nancy Foner
From the Inside Out: The World of the Institutionalized Elderly by Bethel Ann Powers
Continuities and Discontinuities in the Life Course: Experience of Demented Persons in a Residential Alzheimer's Facility by Myrna Silverman and Carol McAllister
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

3 Stars from Doody

This new book offers an edited collection of papers that discuss different aspects of method and findings in ethnographic research done in nursing homes. Each chapter, written by a different author(s), presents findings that serve to illustrate and contextualize the experience of long-term care and the inherent social dilemmas within that environment for nursing home residents, staff, and researchers. The purpose is to show how ethnographic research can discover, analyze, and present various views of nursing home life from the perspective of residents and staff. This research can lead to improvements in the way care is provided to institutionalized elderly. Although intended for gerontologists and anthropologists, this book is also of interest to nurses, social workers, and other health professionals, and corresponding graduate students, who have interest and expertise in long-term care of the elderly and qualitative research. The focus on methodological issues at a high level precludes recommendation of this volume for a wider clinical audience. The book is well edited with consistent quality of writing across chapters. The references of each chapter have been combined in a master list that is complete, up to date, and very useful for scholars in this field. This book is the only collection of its kind in a field of increasing importance as the proportion of elderly in our population grows. For the reader with an understanding of qualitative methods, it provides an interesting survey of a range of methodological and ethical issues involved in field research in nursing homes. The ethnographic findings presented in each chapter provide valuable insights into the socioculturalenvironments of nursing homes as experienced by those who live and work in them. The book is recommended for purchase by libraries and by scholars and students of long-term care and qualitative research.

David L. Kahn

Anthropologists, sociologists, and researchers in medicine and nursing present perspectives on nursing homes by people who live, work, visit, and volunteer in them. The 12 studies grapple with methodological and ethical issues regarding such research, and highlight the tension between care giving and medical models of our society's accommodation of old people. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Reviewer: David L. Kahn, PhD, RN (University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing)
Description: This new book offers an edited collection of papers that discuss different aspects of method and findings in ethnographic research done in nursing homes. Each chapter, written by a different author(s), presents findings that serve to illustrate and contextualize the experience of long-term care and the inherent social dilemmas within that environment for nursing home residents, staff, and researchers.
Purpose: The purpose is to show how ethnographic research can discover, analyze, and present various views of nursing home life from the perspective of residents and staff. This research can lead to improvements in the way care is provided to institutionalized elderly.
Audience: Although intended for gerontologists and anthropologists, this book is also of interest to nurses, social workers, and other health professionals, and corresponding graduate students, who have interest and expertise in long-term care of the elderly and qualitative research. The focus on methodological issues at a high level precludes recommendation of this volume for a wider clinical audience.
Features: The book is well edited with consistent quality of writing across chapters. The references of each chapter have been combined in a master list that is complete, up to date, and very useful for scholars in this field.
Assessment: This book is the only collection of its kind in a field of increasing importance as the proportion of elderly in our population grows. For the reader with an understanding of qualitative methods, it provides an interesting survey of a range of methodological and ethical issues involved in field research in nursing homes. The ethnographic findings presented in each chapter provide valuable insights into the sociocultural environments of nursing homes as experienced by those who live and work in them. The book is recommended for purchase by libraries and by scholars and students of long-term care and qualitative research.

Doody's Review Service