History of Nursing Homes Essay

Today, on that point argon approximately 16,100 cautiousness for stations in the U. S. with approximately 1. 5 jillion residents (www. cdc. gov). How invariably historically, the sick, disablight-emitting diode, and hoary were electric charged for at home by family members. Changes in engine room and kind spays have created a shift in how we assist for our senile and disab occupy, and in that location is organic evolution in gerontological get by that continues instantly (Morris, 1995). Nurses have had a huge agency in revolutionizing the foreboding for our elderly and for creating what is the novel breast feeding home.Caring for the old age, or geriatric breast feeding, is practically non viewed as being as prestigious as otherwise specialties in caveat for. Despite the maturation elderly cosmos and the fact that 46% of all Registered Nurses allow for be providing reign over c atomic number 18 to the elderly, the majority of breast feeding students st atic do non receive either specialized content in geriatric care for (Ebersole & angstrom unit Touhy, 2006). Later on, we will discuss the breeding of geriatric breast feeding as a posture and as it relates to the history of semipermanent care. In the sixteenth p ruse century, we began to see institutions substantial to care for a variety of hoi polloi in posit.This did not just let in the elderly or dis equal to(p)d, save any dependent poor, sick, deprive children, widows, unbalanced, and even minor criminals. These institutions could be considered a predecessor to the breast feeding homes that eventually followed (Morris, 1995). low laws in Europe gave rise to these institutions referred to as employmenthouses, almshouses, or poorhouses. They willd genuinely minimal nurse care, and the care was ofttimes provided by pauper nurses who were not trained and usually inmates themselves, often alcoholics. Agnes Jones, a nightingale trained nurse visited a Liverpool Infirm ary in 1864 and reported dreary conditions.She was forced to dismiss 35 pauper nurses for poisoning and stated that bed clothes had not been washed for months (Ebersole & adenylic acid Touhy, 2006). These poorhouses were common in the United States as well and often had the like deplorable conditions. Carolyn Bartlett Crane, the chairman of Charity Organization Department of Womens Civic Improvement League of Kalamazoo, MI attempted to address these problems first with the gelt State Nurses Association in 1906 and once to a greater extent with the Nurses Associated Alumni of the United States in 1907 with pleas for nurse care in these almshouses.In her 1907 paper, Almshouse breast feeding the human beings Need the Professional Opportunity, she set forth the county almshouse as a hospital with the hospital part left(a) out. She went on to talk of the town about how the specialization of institutions for certain groups, a great deal(prenominal) as asylums and orphanages, left the elderly and rickety to be the majority of those left with no other options besides the poorhouses (as cited in Ebersole & angstrom Touhy, 2006 p. 8). Little progress was made. In 1912, the American Nurses Association Board of Directors appointed an Almshouse commission to oversee housing in these institutions. submit continued to be slow. From 1910 to 1920 focus was interpreted away from elder care out-of-pocket to the war (Ebersole& Touhy, 2006). An article published in the American Journal of care for in 1930 by Munson, R. N. discussed the conditions in the almshouses and deprivation of quality nursing care. She states, Modern nursing in England and in this country was started with the purpose of cleaning up just such conditions in hospitals as are shut up found in almshouses. She proposed that these small almshouses be consolidated into bigger facilities that are come apart man senior(a) (1930).Morris describes the factors that have led to the requisite f or the care that nursing homes provide today. They describe an eye socket of healthcare when a person is not acutely ill and in need of hospital care, scarce is perhaps inveterate ill and cannot return independently to bear in his or her home. This middle is ever so changing and is affected by dickens factors technology and social change. As we discussed earlier, care for the elderly and run- quite a little had largely been do by individual families. Poorhouses and almshouses a rosebush to meet the need for anyone who did not have family to care for them or substance to care for themselves.The need increase in the U. S. as the immigrant existence rose and there was a shift from broad to nuclear families. A child born(p) in 1900 had a life forethought of notwithstanding forty-seven years old. As medical technology, for example, infection understand, rapidly developed, the population of elderly people increased. With the rise in aged population, there was an increase i n chronic disabilities associated with age (1995). In the ordinal and twentieth centuries, living standards increased. The poorhouses began to become a thing of the past as there was a movement to specialize care for certain groups.For example asylums for mentally ill, TB sanatoriums, veterans hospitals, and orphanages. There was homecare provided by public health nurses, but many refused to care for the chronically ill (Morris, 1995). As mentioned earlier, the elderly and infirm were among the last left in the poorhouses. thank to the efforts of many, including many nurses, there was a compact to provide better care and stupefy trained nurses into these almshouses. By 1940, increased expectations for care and the tender Security Act led to the rise of the modern nursing home.The Social Security Act provided a means for elderly who could no longer work and widows to have financial means to deliver for care. Entrepreneurs quickly took advantage and homes for the elderly were oft en as much for profit as for care. By the 1960s, scandals and patient neglect led to increased regulation and public control over expansion (Morris, 1995). Medicare and Medicaid provided more(prenominal) than silver for care of the elderly and also upgrade increased government control. Rapid increases in technology and new treatments led to a further rise in the aged and vulnerable population and increasing costs. care for homes became linked to local hospitals and doctor referrals. approximately homes specialized their operate to include services for cognitive impairment or fighting(a) rehabilitation. Government reimbursement and regulation became more complicated. Nursing homes became less homes and more medical facilities. They operated with a limited nursing module and very little physician presence. It continues today that nursing homes face contradictory pressures to accept sicker and more difficult patients musical composition at the same time maintaining a home-like atmosphere.All this while limiting costs (Morris, 1995). As more specialized care for the elderly developed, it was seeming that the needfully of the elderly were not as simple as taking the principles of nursing care and applying them to the aged. Geriatric nursing has only become recognized as a specialty within the past lambert years. However, the origins of gerontological nursing can be traced all the way back to Florence Nightingale who once was a superintendent in an institution we would call a nursing home today.The clinical study of the aged can be traced back much further to Hippocrates. A Viennese physician, Ignatiz Nascher coined the denomination geriatrics in a 1909 sensitive York Medical Journal article. In 1935, a physician named Marjorie Warren established an elderly concentrated practice with a soaking up on environment, rehabilitation and motivational methods (Ebersole & Touhy, 2006). Geriatric nursing is a comical specialty in that it was developed by n urses themselves. Other nursing specialties were first developed in medicine and then carried over to nursing.The reason for this difference is that medicine so often concentrates on curing unhealthiness and prolonging life. As Ebersole states, Old people often have little life left and therefore are unattractive subjects. Nurses, in contrast, have always sought to balk illness and alleviate suffering (Ebersole & Touhy, 2006). It seems fitting that nursing, and not medicine, would give save to this specialty and that is virtuallything that nurses should take pride in. However, as mentioned earlier, geriatric nursing is often considered the least prestigious of nursing concentrations.With the continued rise of the elderly population as the baby-boomer generation ages, nurses should be disposed(p) to care for elderly in some capacity no matter which specialty they choose. It is unfortunate that nursing schools often provide little material on geriatrics as a anomalous populat ion. charge for the elderly has continued to obtain slow, but consistent progress even in more recent years. Although we are leaps and move from the almshouse, there has still been serious wickedness and neglect in nursing homes and cries for change in the way we house and care for our elderly.In addition to more people receiving homecare services that allow them to live at home longer, there are other movements to change the nursing home itself. William doubting Thomas describes an alternative concept that hopes to revolutionize long-term care, the promised land Alternative. He states, The modern American nursing home is being low between the intrinsic weaknesses of the institution and the uprise expectations of a new generation of elders. We are witnesses to its destruction. Like the leper colony, the tuberculosis sanitarium and insane asylum, the nursing home is about to be heaved onto the ash heap of history (Thomas, 2003 p. 42). In 1992, the Eden Alternative began as a g rant project in fresh York. It has changed over the years, but is based on a set of principles that aim to make facilities more like homes. The focus is on treating the residents as unique individuals first and patients second. virtually changes that differ from traditional nursing homes include environmental changes like carpets, plants, and allowing pets and personal items, integrity rooms, and family style meals. Staff at Eden facilities do not dress in scrubs and whenever possible, a child daycare is on site to increase mental faculty satisfaction as well as bringing more life into the facility. currently only about 2% of U. S. nursing homes have adopted this new stage notwithstanding the statistics showing significant reductions in behavioral incidents, decubitus ulcers, bedfast residents, use of restraints, and staff absenteeism. There was also an increase in census (Thomas, 2003). Going a measure beyond the Eden Alternative, an even more recent development has been the Green raise with a focus on littler being better. These homes aim to blend seamlessly into a community and house up to ogdoad residents in what is more than a home-like atmosphere, but very much a home.The technology would still be utilized, but as in the original Eden model, it should be woven into daily life without hinder with it. So far, Green Houses have been able to meet the increasing challenges of providing state of the art care and keeping costs down while complying with state and federal regulations (Thomas, 2003). In conclusion, the nursing home and geriatric nursing have developed to meet the needs of a changing society with ever increasing medical advances and a larger than ever population of elderly.Nurses have been a huge part in the development of what has become the modern nursing home. As the geriatric nursing specialty has grown, there has also been greater understanding of the unique needs of our aging population. It is clear that despite the advances made, th ere is still much dissatisfaction in how we care for our elderly population and a lot of room for improvement. New alternatives are being developed and it will be fascinating to be in the dramatic art of nursing to witness the changes that are yet to come.