Purpose: As a highly heterogeneous group, seniors live in complex environments influenced by multiple physical and social structures that affect their safety. Until now, the major approach to falls research has been person centered. However, in industrial settings, the individuals involved in an accident are seen as the inheritors of system…

Purpose: To estimate the impact of nursing home work practices, specifically compensation and working conditions, on job satisfaction of nursing assistants employed in nursing homes. Design and Methods: Data are from the 2004 National Nursing Assistant Survey, responses by the nursing assistants' employers to the 2004 National Nursing Home Survey,…

Purpose: This study explored aspects of stigmatization for older adults who live in residential care or assisted living (RC-AL) communities and what these settings have done to address stigma. Design and Methods: We used ethnography and other qualitative data-gathering and analytic techniques to gather data from 309 participants (residents, family…

Provides further insight into the relationship between facility ownership and facility performance in nursing homes. Found proprietary nursing homes to have lower costs than not-for-profit and government homes. Measures of quality, however, may be inadequate to assess the psychosocial quality aspects of environments. (Author/ABB)

Examined whether newly admitted nursing home patients' anticipated stresses of institutional care would relate to their experiences of stress one and three months later, and whether patients' experiences of stress would correspond to independent judgments of the quality of the nursing homes. Patients experienced the kinds of stresses they…

To control wanderers' exiting, the view and light through a window were manipulated using visual barriers: window blind, cloth barrier, and a combination of the two. The closed blind decreased exiting by 44% while the cloth barrier was 96% effective. Combining the blind and cloth barrier lessened exiting by 88%. (RJM)

This study monitored the impact of intra-institutional relocation upon the mortality and morbidity of movers and nonmovers over a period of 30 months. Results reveal a higher mortality rate and a greater decrement on the physical and mental functioning of male patients who were transferred. (Author)

Interviews with institutionalized elderly parents and their middle-aged children question the common stereotype that institutionalization reflects a breakdown in family solidarity. Data suggest that institutional care can serve to enhance family relations, particularly when family ties have been strained by needs of the older member. (Author)

Reports effects of institutional regimes on levels of dependency among residents of public homes for the elderly in England. Differences in management practices and caring routines did not affect the creation or reduction of dependency among residents. Questions the rationale that informs some current notions of good practice in residential work.…

Purpose: We present the concept of the Green House, articulated by William Thomas as a radically changed, "deinstitutionalized" nursing home well before its first implementation, and we describe and discuss implications from the first Green Houses in Tupelo, Mississippi. Design and Methods: Green Houses are small, self-contained houses…