History of Nursing Homes Essay

Today, on that point be roughly 16,100 breast feeding home bases in the U. S. with approximately 1. 5 million residents (www. cdc. gov). How forever historically, the sick, disab conduct, and aged were bootd for at home by family members. Changes in applied science and social tilts draw created a call forth in how we c are for our ripened and disabled, and at that place is evolution in geriatric manage that continues straightaway (Morris, 1995). Nurses encounter had a coarse role in revolutionizing the share for our olderly and for creating what is the modern nurse home.Caring for the over-the-hill age, or geriatric treat, is a broadcast non viewed as creation as reputable as other(a) specialties in nursing. disdain the growing senior(a) population and the demoteicular that 46% of all Registered Nurses get out be providing direct caveat to the elder, the majority of nursing students mum do non fuck off any setd content in geriatric nurs ing (Ebersole & Touhy, 2006). Later on, we will discuss the development of geriatric nursing as a intensity level and as it relates to the history of long-term tutelage. In the ordinal century, we began to see institutions essential to aid for a variety of people in pick up.This did non near implicate the aged(a) or disabled, but any dependent poor, sick, orphaned kidskinren, widows, insane, and even minor criminals. These institutions could be considered a predecessor to the nursing homes that eventually followed (Morris, 1995). piteous laws in Europe gave plagiarise to these institutions referred to as workhouses, almshouses, or poorhouses. They provided very(prenominal) minimal nursing divvy up, and the care was a good deal provided by pauper nurses who were non trained and usually inmates themselves, often alcoholics. Agnes Jones, a Nightingale trained nurse visited a Liverpool Infirmary in 1864 and reported piteous conditions.She was forced to dismiss 35 paup er nurses for dipsomania and stated that bed clothes had not been w altered for months (Ebersole & Touhy, 2006). These poorhouses were common in the unite farmings as well and often had the like deplorable conditions. Carolyn Bartlett Crane, the Chairman of kindness Organization Department of Womens civil Improvement League of Kalamazoo, MI essay to address these problems first with the Michigan State Nurses Association in 1906 and again with the Nurses Associated Alumni of the get together States in 1907 with pleas for nursing care in these almshouses.In her 1907 paper, Almshouse Nursing the Human strike the Professional Opportunity, she light upond the county almshouse as a hospital with the hospital part left out. She went on to talk or so how the specialization of institutions for certain groups, such as asylums and orphanages, left the patriarchal and infirm to be the majority of those left with no other options besides the poorhouses (as cited in Ebersole & Touhy, 2006 p. 8). Little get along was made. In 1912, the Ameri cannister Nurses Association posting of Directors appointed an Almshouse Committee to oversee trapping in these institutions.Progress proceed to be slow. From 1910 to 1920 focus was taken away from elder care due to the war (Ebersole& Touhy, 2006). An denomination published in the American journal of Nursing in 1930 by Munson, R. N. discussed the conditions in the almshouses and lack of quality nursing care. She states, mod nursing in England and in this estate was started with the purpose of cleaning up just such conditions in hospitals as are still found in almshouses. She proposed that these petite almshouses be consolidated into larger facilities that are better managed (1930).Morris describes the factors that have led to the pick up for the care that nursing homes provide today. They describe an area of healthcare when a soulfulness is not acutely ill and in need of hospital care, but is perhaps chronically ill and cannot return separately to live in his or her home. This centerfield is ever changing and is affected by two factors technology and social change. As we discussed earlier, care for the elderly and infirm had largely been done by individual families. Poorhouses and almshouses arose to gain the need for anyone who did not have family to care for them or center to care for themselves.The need developmentd in the U. S. as the immi reach population rose and in that respect was a keel from extended to nuclear families. A child born in 1900 had a flavor expectancy of besides forty-seven long time old. As medical exam technology, for example, infection control, cursorily developed, the population of elderly people change magnitude. With the rise in aged population, there was an increase in chronic disabilities associated with age (1995). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, living standards increased. The poorhouses began to bend a thing of the past times as ther e was a movement to specialize care for certain groups.For example asylums for mentally ill, TB sanatoriums, veterans hospitals, and orphanages. in that respect was homecare provided by frequent 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. Thanks to the efforts of many, including many nurses, there was a push to provide better care and bring trained nurses into these almshouses. By 1940, increased expectations for care and the Social Security locomote led to the rise of the modern nursing home.The Social Security Act provided a means for elderly who could no long-lived work and widows to have financial means to pay for care. Entrepreneurs quickly took advantage and homes for the elderly were often as much for scratch as for care. By the 1960s, scandals and patient slackness led to increased regulation and worldly concern control over expansion (Morris, 1 995). Medicare and Medicaid provided much money for care of the elderly and in any case further increased government control. quick increases in technology and new treatments led to a further rise in the aged and vulnerable population and increase costs.Nursing homes became linked to local hospitals and restore referrals. Some homes specialized their function to include services for cognitive impairment or active rehabilitation. Government reimbursement and regulation became to a greater extent complicated. Nursing homes became less homes and much medical facilities. They operated with a limited nursing supply and very short physician presence. It continues today that nursing homes face contradictory pressures to film sicker and much difficult patients plot of ground at the same time maintaining a home-like atmosphere. all in all this while limiting costs (Morris, 1995). As more specialized care for the elderly developed, it was apparent that the postulate of the elderly were not as simple as winning the principles of nursing care and applying them to the aged. Geriatric nursing has only become recognized as a specialty within the past fifty years. However, the origins of gerontological nursing can be traced all the way covering fire to Florence Nightingale who once was a overseer in an institution we would call a nursing home today.The clinical take in of the aged can be traced spinal column much further to Hippocrates. A Viennese physician, Ignatiz Nascher coined the word geriatrics in a 1909 New York Medical Journal article. In 1935, a physician named Marjorie Warren naturalised an elderly concentrated practice with a concentration on environment, rehabilitation and motivational methods (Ebersole & Touhy, 2006). Geriatric nursing is a odd specialty in that it was developed by nurses themselves. Other nursing specialties were first developed in medicine and then carried over to nursing.The reason for this disagreeence is that medicine so of ten concentrates on curing malady 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 interdict illness and alleviate suffering (Ebersole & Touhy, 2006). It seems commensurate that nursing, and not medicine, would give birth to this specialty and that is something that nurses should take vainglory 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 prepared to care for elderly in some talent no matter which specialty they choose. It is piteous that nursing schools often provide little material on geriatrics as a unique population. Care for the elderly has continued to make slow, but unchanging progress even in more modern years. Although we are leaps and bounds from the almshouse, there has stil l been serious abuse and thoughtlessness 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 Thomas describes an option concept that hopes to revolutionize long-term care, the heaven Alternative. He states, The modern American nursing home is being crushed surrounded by the intrinsic weaknesses of the institution and the rising expectations of a new generation of elders. We are witnesses to its destruction. interchangeable 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 heaven Alternative began as a grant project in New 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 re sidents as unique individuals first and patients second. Some changes that differ from traditional nursing homes include environmental changes like carpets, plants, and allowing pets and personal items, single rooms, and family hyphen meals. Staff at Eden facilities do not dress in nightgown and whenever possible, a child daycare is on site to increase staff contentment as well as carry more life into the facility.Currently only about 2% of U. S. nursing homes have adopted this new format patronage the statistics showing significant reductions in behavioural incidents, decubitus ulcers, bedfast residents, use of restraints, and staff absenteeism. There was besides an increase in number (Thomas, 2003). Going a step beyond the Eden Alternative, an even more recent development has been the Green House with a focus on smaller being better. These homes aim to blend seamlessly into a fellowship and house up to eight residents in what is more than a home-like atmosphere, but very mu ch a home.The technology would still be utilized, but as in the original Eden model, it should be distort into daily life without interfering with it. So far, Green Houses have been able to acquire the increase 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 spacious 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, there 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 enrapturing to b e in the field of nursing to witness the changes that are yet to come.