title: Patient, resident, or person: Recognition and the continuity of self in long-term care for older people.
abstract: Becoming a resident in a long-term care facility challenges older people's continuity of self in two major ways. Firstly, as they leave behind their previous home, neighborhood, and often their social surroundings, older people have to change their life-long lifestyles, causing fears of the loss of one's self. Secondly, modern-day care facilities have some features of 'total' institutions that produce patient-like role expectations and thus challenge older people's selves. Our ethnographic study in a geriatric hospital and a sheltered home in Finland aims to find out what features of daily life either support or challenge older people's continuity of self. A philosophical reading of the concept of recognition is used to explore how various daily practices and interactions support recognizing people as persons in long-term care. Categories of institution-centered and person-centered features are described to illustrate multiple ways in which people are recognized and misrecognized. The discussion highlights some ways in which long-term care providers could use the results of the study.
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences and Gerontology Research Center, University of Tampere, 33014, Finland. Electronic address: jari.pirhonen@uta.fi.
authors.forename: Jari
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pirhonen
authors.affiliation: School of Health Sciences and Gerontology Research Center, University of Tampere, 33014, Finland. Electronic address: ilkka.pietila@uta.fi.
authors.forename: Ilkka
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Pietilä
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology*; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D004532:Ego; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D006707:Homes for the Aged; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D009735:Nursing Homes; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: Continuity of self; Long-term care; Older people; Recognition; Roles