Presents data from the development and testing of an instrument created to evaluate the oral health of nursing home residents by nursing personnel. Examination of 100 residents by dentists and 3 categories of trained nurses established statistically significant interrater reliability, suggesting that nursing staff can be taught to evaluate the…

Purpose: Our objective in this study was to compare Medicare costs of treating older adults with and without dementia in nursing home settings. Design and Methods: An expert panel established the dementia status of a stratified random sample of newly admitted residents in 59 Maryland nursing homes between 1992 and 1995. Medicare expenditures…

Nursing home medical-record documentation of daily-care occurrence may be inaccurate, and information is not documented about important quality-of-life domains. The inadequacy of medical record data creates a barrier to improving care quality, because it supports an illusion of care consistent with regulations, which reduces the motivation and…

This paper describes a new measure, the Worry Questionnaire for Nursing Home Residents (WQNHR), designed to assess the frequency of specific worries. It was administered to 67 residents. Psychometric evaluation showed an average item-to-total correlation of 0.20 (range = 0.15 to 0.58), an internal consistency estimate of 0.79, and a test-retest…

A powerful practical reclaiming strategy for youth at risk is to tap their potential for service to others. This counters a sense of learned helplessness. The term "learned helplessness" (Seligman, 1975) comes to mind when the author thinks about when she began working with troubled youth more than 20 years ago. Her and her co-workers often spoke…

Purpose: Assisted living is an increasingly important residential setting for the frail elderly person. How often and why residents leave such facilities are important issues for consumers, for clinicians advising frail patients on their options for living arrangements, and for policymakers. This research investigated the impact of facility and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the direction and magnitude of the effects among the components of resident satisfaction in residential aged care and to examine if the relationships among satisfaction components vary according to facility type (i.e., nursing home and hostel). Briefly, a hostel is a low-care facility in which…

The purpose of this research was to design, develop, deliver, and evaluate an online dementia care program aimed at enabling healthcare teams deliver better service to residents with dementia in continuing (CC) and long-term care (LTC) facilities. A Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) orientation (Minkler & Wallerstein, 2003) was adopted…

Purpose: While state policy and market factors are known to have contributed to the increased supply of residential care, little is known about efforts to accommodate demand from lower-income consumers. This study describes participation and expenditure trends for residential care services funded by Medicaid waivers and examines variation across…

Purpose: We sought to determine whether participants in the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) with an informal caregiver have a higher or lower risk of nursing home admission than those without caregivers. Design and Methods: We performed a secondary data analysis of 3,189 participants aged 55 years or older who were enrolled in…

This handbook (which contains a collection of articles and resources) describes activities that have been used in a program of intergenerational activities in Broome County, New York. In part 1 of the handbook, chapter 1 provides an overview of intergenerational program development. Succeeding chapters present information concerning: (1) issues to…

In response to the need for an increase in services directed specifically to the elderly, a training and educational needs assessment of the existing elder service organizations in Lake County (Illinois) was conducted. Thirteen gerontological organizations were chosen for participation; the organizations were categorized into these groups: nursing…

This paper offers advice, from members of People First, concerning the process of having individuals with disabilities move out of institutions and nursing homes into community living arrangements. The first section lists categories of questions that express the potential concerns and worries of people who are going to move, such as "Why do…

Elective off premises activities of 65 functionally mobile patients in two nursing homes were studied for a six-month period. More intact patients engaged in a greater frequency of off premises outings. Thus, in-house recreational activities in a long-term care setting should be geared to the more deprived intellectually impaired patient…

Operant principles were used to design an activity for a group of handicapped, elderly women in a home for the aged; the activity was monitored to study its impact on their levels of participation and social interaction. Results are described. (Author)