About half of nursing home residents are demented, but it isn't clear if that's always the reason they are there. It appears that behavior problems such as wandering, violent behavior or calling out are causes of nursing home placement. A number of the ones who die quickly after admission are otherwise the same as long-term stayers but don't survive being in the nursing home. This is probably because older women are much more likely to be single than men and because women more readily take on personal care of their spouses. In addition, women survive longer on average after admission to the nursing home.
Whites use nursing homes about twice as much as people of color.
This is probably because of a combination of greater reliance on family resources and distrust of institutions Reliance on family for personal care is a social norm since among many cultures of color, until recently, institutional resources simply weren't available. Average capacity is just over 100 so there are about 1.7 million nursing home beds. See ahcpr long-term care info for more info. Nursing home care and administration is very challenging for this reason. Many want to tell nursing homes how to do their job, but few want to actually do it.