Abstract Care in nursing homes is often perceived as one-way: caregivers (staff and family) provide care, and residents receive it. Findings from my ongoing critical ethnography of a nursing home challenge this binary. Guided by critical disability studies and using observation, interviews, and reflection, the ethnography prioritizes the perspective of residents. Central to the ethnography… Read more »
Description ‘Aggressive behavior among dementia patients’ is seen as a major concern in nursing homes because of its stressful impact on caregivers. Geriatric-medicine literature defines ‘aggressive behavior’ as hitting, kicking, and screaming. Caregivers are advised to ‘manage’ this ‘behavior’ through a variety of strategies: identifying and removing environmental triggers, behavior modification, reassurance and distraction, and… Read more »
Abstract All of us get old if we are lucky, and disability is a natural part of human variation across the lifespan. Early in her life, Susan* was labelled with developmental disability but, unlike many other disabled people who were born during the mid-twentieth century, she grew up within her family, not in an institution…. Read more »
Description Most Canadians who died of Covid-19 lived in nursing homes. Their deaths renewed calls for nursing-home reform. These institutions are the last resort when home care fails to deliver and family caregivers become overwhelmed. Since infections spread quickly in large institutions, why not replace them with non-profit, community-based alternatives? These have a long track… Read more »
Description Care in nursing homes is often perceived as one-way: caregivers (staff and family) provide care, and residents receive it. Findings from my ongoing critical ethnography of a nursing home challenge this binary. Guided by critical disability studies and using observation, interviews, and reflection, the ethnography prioritizes the perspective of residents. Central to the ethnography… Read more »
Abstract In a 2021 poll by the National Institute on Aging, 97% of Canadian seniors said they did not want to live in a long-term-care facility (a nursing home). Many long-term-care residents do not need to be in institutions, whose numerous drawbacks were exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Residents are there because they cannot receive… Read more »