VOLUNTARY CONFINEMENT: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF A LIFETIME CARE RETIREMENT COMMUNITY (AGING).
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1994
Number of pages: 184
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This is a study that was initiated to describe the interactions of the residents of a lifetime care facility. The author, a nurse for many years, wanted to know more about the environment of nursing homes because patients voiced strong resistance to them. The qualitative study involved participant observation, interviews and conversations over the course of more than a year. Residents and staff were observed in public places as they participated in planned and unplanned events.

It was clear that the author held some strong biases about the positive aspects of aging and continuing care facilities that were difficult to keep in abeyance. The recurring themes that emerged from the data suggested that women enter lifetime care facilities for security and safety. The data also suggested that the lifetime care facility is based on the medical model of health care and as such is programmed to respond to sick people, not well people. Subsequently, the resident is initiated into a system that rewards dependence while at the same time devaluing those who are dependent. The resident has voluntarily entered an institution that the larger society views as helpful to aging women but in reality probably hastens their decline.

The author provided some rich descriptions of the fixed environment, and the interactions of the residents as they participated in bingo, sing-alongs and general activities with the other residents and the staff. It became clear as the data were examined that the residents continue to construct their activities around the routines that they have known in the larger society and that the subordination of women continues in this environment that is dominated by the medical model of care.

The author suggested utilizing the concepts of unknowing and instrumental friendship to begin to deconstruct our mythologies of providing care to elderly individuals and in particular to the residents of the lifetime care facility.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-07, Section: B, page: 2650.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1994.

School code: 0055.