The Ends of Time: Life and Work in a Nursing Home / Edition 1

by Joel Savishinsky

Overview

A lively account of life in a decent American nursing home, this book offers an in-depth look at American geriatric facilities. Using six years of anthropological research, Joel Savishinsky analyzes the lives and experiences of residents, staff members, and volunteers. He addresses the contradictory attitudes American society has shown towards geriatric facilities and the aging process itself: the tensions between caring and curing, morality and mortality, privacy and supervision, home and institution, and selfishness and altruism.

Savishinsky portrays the strengths and weaknesses of the nursing home in a humanistic way, emphasizing how the nursing home affects the individuals who live and work there. He also discusses inventive recreation programs, such as pet therapy, suggesting they can alleviate loneliness and provide meaningful opportunities for residents. Savishinsky challenges the stereotypic view of aging and institutional life, concluding that not all nursing homes are warehouses for the dying; he offers several recommendations for improving the quality of life and work in geriatric institutions. This book is presented in nontechnical language and is valuable to the general reader as well as to professionals in health, social science, social work, and gerontology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897892292
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/18/1991
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

JOEL S. SAVISHINSKY is Professor of Anthropology at Ithaca College. He is author of The Trail of the Hare: Life and Stress in an Arctic Community and co-editor of Deviance: Anthropological Perspectives (Bergin & Garvey, 1991). He has written numerous articles on pet therapy, Alzheimer's disease, voluntarism, and institutional responses to death and moral dilemmas.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
The Visits
Meanings and Losses
The Residents
Memories and Symbols
Silence and Stigma
The Staff
Roles and Realities
The Volunteers
Altruism and Aging
Conclusions and Recommendations
References
Index