A nursing home is not a hospital. Many people, especially after recent hospitalization, think of the nursing home as an extension of hospital care. They expect the same kind of intensive care they received in the hospital. A nursing home is different. For some this is also true of their mental processes.
Many people enter a nursing home because they are considered too forgetful to manage their own care.
Often, however, this condition can be reversed with adequate nutrition, exercise, social stimulation, and properly controlled medication. It is realistic to expect a full range of capabilities and personalities among residents in nursing homes. Some will have completely lucid minds in fragile handicapped bodies. Others will have healthy bodies but minds that are no longer functioning normally. Most will fall somewhere between the two extremes.