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.
Full Product Details
Author: Joel Savishinsky
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint: Praeger Publishers Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.50cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.405kg
ISBN: 9780897892292
ISBN 10: 0897892291
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 18 October 1991
Recommended Age: From 7 to 17 years
Audience:
College/higher education
,
General/trade
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
The Ends of Time. . . marks a turning point in the ethnographic study of older people who have moved beyond the traditional context of family and community. . . . [The book] is a rich contribution to the ethnographic literature on aging. . . [and it] captures the full range of emotions on display in the nursing home and conveys them in a context that is fully articulated within the institution's culturally modified spatial and temporal dimensions. - Maria D. Vesperi, Ph.D. University of South Florida
Author Information
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.
