THE LIVING END: LIMINALITY IN AN AMERICAN NURSING HOME (JEWISH).
Contributors: Brown University.
Published: 1984
Number of pages: 230
Subjects: Anthropology, Cultural.
Description: Ethnographic research was conducted for fourteen months in a 250-bed, non-profit, Jewish nursing home with superior staffing ratios and facilities. The average age of the residents was approximately 85 years, and the average length of stay was approximately three years. Residents' nursing needs ranged from minimal care to continuous, skilled nursing care. At least fifty percent of the residents exhibited some senile dementia. Methodology included participant-observation, open-ended interviews, the taping of life histories, and the collection of demographic data from admissions since 1970. Research centered on resident mobility (room changes within the institution and hospitalizations), the nature of community formation and dissolution, patterns of staff and resident interactions, the limitations on reciprocal relations, and the nature of nursing home residence as a rite of passage event.

Life in this total institution is complicated by divisive staff beliefs characterized in the dissertation as: home versus hospital, life versus quality of life, and maintenance versus rehabilitation. Few staff members have knowledge of Jewish beliefs or history. Residents experience multiple hospitalizations and room changes. Entrance into this nursing home is a rite of passage with no solidifying rituals which prepare residents for the next stage, death. Stripped of past associations (separation), the transition (liminality) constitutes an end in itself because the occurrence of death (reincorporation) is combatted by medical intervention, the subject of death is avoided in staff interactions with residents, and the event of death is unmarked by official notice and ceremony.

Furthermore, the residents are recipients with few resources to exchange, no need to help each other, and no reason to contribute to the institution. Unlike initiates who perform tasks and are educated before advancing to the next stage, these residents receive services and cannot reciprocate. Their release from obligations reduces their control over their lives. Therefore, conflicting staff goals, a frail and heterogeneous resident population, frequent hospitalizations, restrictions on reciprocity, and the avoidance of death together prevent the formation of rituals and the emergence of staff or resident community, and exacerbate isolation and dependency among the residents.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-07, Section: A, page: 2165.

Thesis (PH.D.)--BROWN UNIVERSITY, 1984.

School code: 0024.