Long-term Care for the Elderly in Europe


Book Description

Long-term care is an increasingly important issue in many contemporary welfare states around the globe given ageing populations. This ground-breaking book provides detailed case studies of 11 EU-member states’ welfare regimes within Europe to show how welfare states organize, structures and deliver long-term care and whether there is a social investment perspective in the delivery of long-term care. This perspective is important because the effect of demographic transitions is often used as an argument for the existence of economic pressure on welfare states and a need for either direct retrenchment or attempts to reduce welfare state spending. The book’s chapters will look specifically into how different welfare states have focussed on long-term care in recent years and what type of changes have taken place with regard to ageing populations and ambitions to curb increases in public sector spending in this area. They describe the development in long-term care for the elderly after the financial crisis and also discuss the boundaries between state and civil society in the different welfare states' approaches to the delivery of care.




Improving the Quality of Care in Nursing Homes


Book Description

As more people live longer, the need for quality long-term care for the elderly will increase dramatically. This volume examines the current system of nursing home regulations, and proposes an overhaul to better provide for those confined to such facilities. It determines the need for regulations, and concludes that the present regulatory system is inadequate, stating that what is needed is not more regulation, but better regulation. This long-anticipated study provides a wealth of useful background information, in-depth study, and discussion for nursing home administrators, students, and teachers in the health care field; professionals involved in caring for the elderly; and geriatric specialists.




Aging Well


Book Description

This open access book outlines the challenges of supporting the health and wellbeing of older adults around the world and offers examples of solutions designed by stakeholders, healthcare providers, and public, private and nonprofit organizations in the United States. The solutions presented address challenges including: providing person-centered long-term care, making palliative care accessible in all healthcare settings and the home, enabling aging-in-place, financing long-term care, improving care coordination and access to care, delivering hospital-level and emergency care in the home and retirement community settings, merging health and social care, supporting people living with dementia and their caregivers, creating communities and employment opportunities that are accessible and welcoming to those of all ages and abilities, and combating the stigma of aging. The innovative programs of support and care in Aging Well serve as models of excellence that, when put into action, move health spending toward a sustainable path and greatly contribute to the well-being of older adults.




Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care


Book Description

Among the issues confronting America is long-term care for frail, older persons and others with chronic conditions and functional limitations that limit their ability to care for themselves. Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care takes a comprehensive look at the quality of care and quality of life in long-term care, including nursing homes, home health agencies, residential care facilities, family members and a variety of others. This book describes the current state of long-term care, identifying problem areas and offering recommendations for federal and state policymakers. Who uses long-term care? How have the characteristics of this population changed over time? What paths do people follow in long term care? The committee provides the latest information on these and other key questions. This book explores strengths and limitations of available data and research literature especially for settings other than nursing homes, on methods to measure, oversee, and improve the quality of long-term care. The committee makes recommendations on setting and enforcing standards of care, strengthening the caregiving workforce, reimbursement issues, and expanding the knowledge base to guide organizational and individual caregivers in improving the quality of care.




Strengths-Based Nursing Care


Book Description

This is the first practical guide for nurses on how to incorporate the knowledge, skills, and tools of Strength-Based Nursing Care (SBC) into everyday practice. The text, based on a model developed by the McGill University Nursing Program, signifies a paradigm shift from a deficit-based model to one that focuses on individual, family, and community strengths as a cornerstone of effective nursing care. The book develops the theoretical foundations underlying SBC, promotes the acquisition of fundamental skills needed for SBC practice, and offers specific strategies, techniques, and tools for identifying strengths and harnessing them to facilitate healing and health. The testimony of 46 nurses demonstrates how SBC can be effectively used in multiple settings across the lifespan.




Families Caring for an Aging America


Book Description

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.




Autonomy and Long-term Care


Book Description

The realities and misconceptions of long-term care and the challenges it presents for the ethics of autonomy are analyzed in this perceptive work. While defending the concept of autonomy, the author argues that the standard view of autonomy as non-interference and independence has only a limited applicability for long-term care. He explains that autonomy should be understood as a comprehensiveness that defines the overall course of a person's life rather than as a way of responding to an isolated situation. Agich distinguishes actual and ideal autonomy and argues that actual autonomy is better revealed in the everyday experiences of long-term care than in dramatic, conflict-ridden paradigm situations such as decisions to institutionalize, to initiate aggressive treatments, or to withhold or to withdraw life-sustaining treatments. Through a phenomenological analysis of long-term care, he develops an ethical framework for it by showing how autonomy is actually manifest in certain structural features of the social world of long-term care. Throughout this timely work, the rich sociological and anthropological literature on aging and long-term care is referenced and the practical ethical questions of promoting and enhancing the exercise of autonomy are addressed.




The Social Transformation of American Medicine


Book Description

Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, this is a landmark history of how the entire American health care system of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries. "The definitive social history of the medical profession in America....A monumental achievement."—H. Jack Geiger, M.D., New York Times Book Review




Culture Change in Long-term Care


Book Description

This book, selected for inclusion in Doody's Core Titles in the Health Sciences, 2005 edition (DCT), will inform you about the theoretical and practical applications of culture change within the institutional long-term care setting. It examines existing models of positive cultures, emphasizing philosophy, underpinning, and implementation. You'll gain a greater understanding of theoretical frameworks for organizational change, of the changes that can occur in all members of the long-term care community, and of culture change in the context of broad organizational experience and cultural competence.




Home Nursing in Europe


Book Description

The increase in the number and life expectancy of elderly people is a general trend across Europe. Each country responds differently to the increased demands for elderly care, due to differences in their socio-cultural, political, and historical backgrounds. This book describes patterns of caregiving to frail, elderly people in Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. For each country, characteristic features of professional and informal elderly care are described, specifically focusing on home nursing. Differences in home nursing in these four countries are described from a broad sociological and cultural perspective. These are related to differences between health-care professions and health-care sectors, structures, and ways of financing of health-care systems, the role of the family in caregiving to elderly people, and norms and values regarding health and illness. This volume provides insight into country-specific patterns of provision of care for vulnerable elderly people.