Culture of Long Term Care

This is the only collection of its kind to offer an inside view of life and work in contemporary nursing homes with the purpose of developing a theory of the culture of long term care. The anthropological research in nursing homes presented here produces a seldom seen native view of patients, staff, and the day-to-day workings of American nursing homes. The use of ethnographic methods penetrates the reality barriers found in industry descriptions, muck-raking discourse, and general societal aversion toward nursing homes. The tensions found between and within staff culture and patient culture are explored in terms of adaptations to institutional life in the context of current policy and the larger American ageist culture.

J. NEIL HENDERSON, a medical anthropologist and noted authority on Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, is Associate Professor in Psychiatry and faculty in the Department of Community and Family Health, College of Public Health, and at the Suncoast Gerontology Center, College of Medicine, University of South Florida. He has authored numerous articles on the cultural context of dementing disease and is the editor of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology.

MARIA D. VESPERI, a cultural anthropologist, is Associate Professor of Anthropology at New College of the University of South Florida in Sarasota. She is a former member of the St. Petersburg Times editorial board and author of City of Green Benches: Growing Old In a New Downtown (1985).