Interviewed 28 relatives of nursing home residents about their involvement in care of elderly relatives and perceptions of care provided by nursing home staff. Relatives attributed responsibility for most tasks to nursing home staff; held themselves responsible for some tasks, such as monitoring and evaluating quality of care, and teaching staff…

Interviewed 198 nursing home residents and 34 primary nurse caregivers regarding perceptions and preferences of resident participation in health care decisions. Approximately 40 percent of residents reported being told nothing about their medical conditions; another 40 percent reported being told everything. Concordance between residents' and…

Administrative staff (N=49) of not-for-profit nursing homes identified 103 autonomy-enhancing programs for mentally impaired. Programs were encompassed within six categories: special resident programming, structural and environmental adaptations, staff training, family programming, staff deployment, and ethics initiatives. (Author/NB)

Statistical and legal analysis of California nursing home admission agreements indicated that agreements limited autonomy of nursing home residents in important ways, including constraints on resident's right to make health care decisions and other basic personal choices, entitlement to due process or grievance procedures, and right to informed…

Observations of direct-care staff behavior were made for 20 days at various locations in a large state-operated residential facility serving the developmentally disabled. Results demonstrated that five 15-minute weekday observations could provide reliable representative information concerning staff activities. (Author/DB)

Used modified differential reinforcement of other behavior schedule with exclusionary time-out procedure to treat 69-year-old aggressive male patient. Results showed clear demonstration of behavioral control and clinically significant treatment effects during experimental periods. (Author/NB)

Reviews the application of social learning approaches to helping delinquents change in institutions. Incarceration is not effective in changing delinquent behavior, and may even foster it through exposure and influence of delinquent peer models. (Author/LHW)

Expresses reservations concerning McConnel's (1984) application of the life table technique to the risk of institutionalization. Presents alternative interpretations as well as estimates of the probability of institutionalization that are substantially lower than McConnel's. (Author/ABB)

Describes an educational program for young persons in custody at the Monteith Correctional Centre. (Author/ABB)

Two institutional treatment models--Intermediate Care Facilities and Foundation Care--were compared with 30 profoundly mentally retarded adults. The Foundation Care model (which emphasized habilitation through health, nurturance, stimulation, and play) demonstrated more resident-oriented management practices and used more tactile modalities and…

Considers impoverishment as a consequence of continuous institutionalization in a nursing home to be a public policy problem and the plight for any older Americans. Discusses one form of long-term care (LTC) insurance, the continuing care retirement community or life care community, and contrasts this small LTC self-insurance group with two other…

Often regarded as equivalent instruments, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) yielded significantly different Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale scores for intellectually subaverage group, with WAIS-R consistently providing higher scores. This has implications for issues of…

Samples of institutionalized and noninstitutionalized children and adults were asked the same questions with and without accompanying drawings intended to clarify question content. Drawings had no impact as an adjunct to yes-no questions but did improve responsiveness to multiple-choice and either-or questions. (Author/ABB)

Studied the effects of relocation on the psychosocial status of institutionalized patients. Found that among certain subgroups of patients, relocation resulted in significant decreases in depression, alienation and distress, and in an improvement in self-concept for all patients regardless of age, sex, or race. (Author/NRB)

Describes a demonstration project that used network theory as a framework for a broad-range ecological approach to social work practice in long-term care facilities for the elderly. The importance of developing and maintaining social supports and the reciprocal benefits in linking kinship, friendship, formal caregiving, and mutual-aid networks are…