Nursing homes and facilities that are somewhat less restrictive are needed and necessary in some situations so as to allow for the proper level of care and supervision. However, the isolation and removal from the outside world that people experience as a result of being in a nursing home can be oppressive and hurtful. There are often times where temporary jaunts outside of the nursing home or fun activities within the same can allow for relief from monotony and so forth. However, advanced medical conditions like Alzheimer's, infectious diseases and bacterial/hygiene issues can all aggravate the isolation just mentioned as there have to be more restrictions on freedom and activity.
Nursing Home Isolation
Other than the obvious concerns about medical care, quality of life and so forth, perhaps one of the most saddening things about seniors being in nursing homes is the isolation and "border" that is created by the outside walls of said nursing home. Indeed, nursing home patients are confined to the inside of the building that they inhabit in many cases. Even when they are allowed to move around outside at all, supervised or not, there are restrictions on where they can do, when they can go and so forth. This report shall explore the loneliness and isolation that exists with nursing home patients and both primary and secondary sources shall be used to describe the same. While there is necessity and need associated with confining senior adults to nursing homes, there are a number of tradeoffs and negative effects that cannot be denied or, for the most part, avoided.
Analysis
Social isolation of any sort is typically not a good thing. Humans are, by nature and biology, social creatures and any forced limitations put on the same can be soul-crushing and harmful in many ways. This is precisely the issue found in nursing homes. However, the people that are relegated to nursing homes are typically there for a reason. It has been determined by family and/or medical professionals that their mental and/or physical health precludes them from being able to live on their own and there are not viable alternatives other than the nursing home itself, whether they be financial- or medical-related. Coming back to the social isolation aspect in particular, one primary study consulted for this report looked at precisely this and the authors of the study made it a point to compare and contrast people with social distress. To be more specific, they compared people in a nursing home environment with people that had freedom of movement and travel in the general public. What was found after multiple regression...
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