The Caregiving Dilemma
Work in an American Nursing Home
$25.00, £14.95 paperback
978-0-520-20337-2
Available Now
190 pages,
June 1994, Available worldwide
Categories: Anthropology; Medical Anthropology; Social Problems; Health & Medicine; Women's Studies
June 1994, Available worldwide
Categories: Anthropology; Medical Anthropology; Social Problems; Health & Medicine; Women's Studies
"When a physician, nurse, or aide is uncaring, one blames them personally rather than examines the context in which the behavior occurs. Foner, an anthropologist, reverses that trend in her excellent in-depth analysis of work in a nursing home. . . .This well-written book precisely describes the reality of nursing aide work in many nursing homes in the US. Highly recommended."—Choice
"An important contribution to our understanding of the world of . . . nursing aides."—Contemporary Gerontology
"An important contribution to our understanding of the world of . . . nursing aides."—Contemporary Gerontology
"I know of no other book which gives such a richly contextualized picture of women workers in a nursing home setting. . . . A first-rate ethnography."—Louise Lamphere, University of New Mexico
Along with increasing life expectancy comes the knowledge that many Americans will one day enter nursing homes. Who are the people who will care for us or for our relatives? Nancy Foner provides a major study of institutional care that focuses on nursing aides, who are the backbone of American nursing homes. She examines the strains and paradoxes facing nursing aides—asked, on the one hand, to provide compassionate care and, on the other, to cope with the pressures of the workplace and the institution.
Aides are expected to look after patients, who are predominantly older women, with kindness and consideration, but nursing home regulations and bureaucratic forces often hinder even the best efforts to offer consistently supportive care. Positioned at the bottom of the nursing hierarchy, aides must cope with the needs of frail, dependent residents, pressures from patients' relatives and from their own families, and demands of supervisors and coworkers.
Foner's detailed description and analysis of caregiving dilemmas, based on intensive field research in a New York facility, brings the perspective of the nursing aides to the fore. This is a timely contribution to the study of work, bureaucracy, and the future of an aging American population.
Aides are expected to look after patients, who are predominantly older women, with kindness and consideration, but nursing home regulations and bureaucratic forces often hinder even the best efforts to offer consistently supportive care. Positioned at the bottom of the nursing hierarchy, aides must cope with the needs of frail, dependent residents, pressures from patients' relatives and from their own families, and demands of supervisors and coworkers.
Foner's detailed description and analysis of caregiving dilemmas, based on intensive field research in a New York facility, brings the perspective of the nursing aides to the fore. This is a timely contribution to the study of work, bureaucracy, and the future of an aging American population.