Essay on Happiness and Health in a Connecticut Nursing Home

“The Palace” is located in the heart of the gables. It is one of the top notch awarded nursing home facilities for seniors stated by many families. Currently being an employee at this facility, I am learning the frightful stories of senior living. Even the Palace one of the most expensive, awarded senior living is actually a terrible place for the elderly. Especially, working at the Front Desk as the receptionist, I have seen firsthand how these poor seniors are forced into these haunted “luxurious” homes. The marble of the building has been often a misleading reason for placing their parent or grandparent in such terrible care. Most humans tend to judge by the appearance of the nursing homes rather than further investigating any violations that the facilities may have. From my own experience with my grandmother, I know it can be very difficult to take care of a senior citizen, especially when they suffer from various conditions and are just not safe in their home. Once adults become seniors, they require a lot of attention and assistance, which is hard when running a whole household and a career. But placing your loved one in one of these facilities can just shorten the amount of time they have to live. Also, it can be very expensive. Lastly, nursing home makes seniors feel the lack of freedom.

Developed by Dr. William Thomas in 1992, the Eden Alternative aims to decrease older adults loneliness, helplessness, and boredom (Tavormina, 1999). Since it originated, many facilities intended on improving the quality of life for older adults and have therefore adopted key elements of the model. The Eden Alternative focuses on improving the quality of life of nursing home residents and creating a homelike setting by enabling the older adults to interact with pets, plants, and children by empowering staff to bring about these changes (Coleman, et al., 2002). The benefits of implementing such a model include decreases in behavioral incidents and use of restraints, as well as in staff absenteeism and turnover. A series of behavioral studies conducted before and after Eden implementation at Providence Mount St. Vincent, a large senior-living care facility in Seattle, also found increases in older adults satisfaction and activity engagement (Boyd, 2003; Thomas, 2003). Qualitative interviews conducted at two other facilities in the United States revealed older adults’ beliefs that their lives had improved, and that the goals of alleviating their loneliness, helplessness, and boredom had been achieved (Kruschke, 2006; Parsons, 2004). It is important to understand older adults thoughts, but also important to gain an insight on the clinical aspect as

groups. It was conducted to further the research in choice overload and paralysis of the mind.

The information contained in this report was gathered in a private nursing home over 2 weeks that for the sake of this essay, be called “facility x”

This paper examines the quality of care received by the elderly with an emphasis on measurements for care, recommending additional tools to be adopted to measure the overall well-being for the elderly in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the quality of care for those living in senior care facilities.

Assisted Living Homes are designed to provide residents with basic everyday assistance. An important aspect is that assisted care facilities provide a safe and comfortable environment for older adults who need assistance with duties such as bathing, dressing, shopping, cooking, grooming, arranging doctor’s appointments, medication administration and laundry services. These facilities have social and recreational activity programs designed to keep the residents active. The recreation groups provide residents with activities for enjoyment, exercise, and interactions with others to build character. Special activities such as luncheon,

Langer & Rodin aimed to investigate the effects of enhanced personal responsibility and choice in a group of nursing home patients. Specifically if increased control has generalised beneficial effects, which in turn affect physical and mental alertness, activity, sociability and general satisfaction.

Reminiscing to 2010, when I was faced with my grandmother 's illness during the adolescent years in my life I knew that I had a passion to care for the elderly (aging) population. From this passion, it ignited a fire so strong that I pursue my certified nursing assistant certification to gain a better understanding of working with the elderly population. By doing so, it has been a great benefit to my life; aging is an inevitable experience that we all will go through during our life. It is important to ensure that our elderly individuals are still able to enjoy the best quality of life after retirement. However, as we age, there will be a lifestyle change that the aging population must encounter.

Control is a complex and multidimensional construct that has spawned a large body of research in psychology since the end of the 1950s. Several theories of control and control-related constructs have been developed, acknowledging that the ability to feel in control over emotions, behaviours and cognitions is an essential element of mental and physical health across the lifespan (Shapiro, Schwartz, & Astin, 1996). One dimension of control that is suggested to be particularly of interest in psychopathology is the perception that one lacks control over negative events and emotional experiences (Weems & Silverman, 2006).

People lose height, skin becomes loose, hair becomes gray, people become covered in wrinkles and they start to become weak. Even though all of this may be true, older people still have purpose in life. Patients often feel stripped from their life from dementia. “Richard Leider, one of America's preeminent executive life coaches and renowned expert on purpose and meaning in life, has postulated that purpose is fundamental to an individual's health, happiness, and longevity”(Nakonetschny). With conducting activities into nursing homes, that sense of happiness and meaning will become reestablished more and more every day. Dementia patients have family that cares for them and wishes the best for them, they do not wish to see their relatives rot away in a nursing

An individual’s personal control plays a vital part in the ability to just enjoy life as it is. Some people have no cares in the world but also may have little motivation to achieve goals. I feel having the right level of control in your life is very important to happiness. “In modern cognitive theories of OCD, control issues are implied in the concept of inflated responsibility, which involves attributing to oneself exaggerated “power which is pivotal to bring about or prevent subjectively crucial negative outcomes” (Salkovskis, 1996, pp. 110–111).

Societal responsibility consists of the protective safeguarding of interests of the next generation and be able to fulfill the present populations needs. The responsibility of happiness is a societal issue it is not tangible nor measurable although, it is a key element of life; this can bee seen through the use of Cumming and Henry’s activity theory. Activity theory recognizes that activity levels and social involvement are key to happiness for the elderly (Little et al 2014, p.420).The media, work, health systems; directly affect ones happiness.

This experimental study was carried out to examine “the effects of enhanced personal responsibility and choice” on a group of residents who were living a decision-free nursing home environment. The experiment consisted of two groups; the experimental group was given effective communication with emphasis on their personal responsibility, while the communication given to the second group stressed the responsibilities of the institutional staff toward them. Furthermore, the experimental group was granted the self-determination (freedom) to make choices and the responsibility of caring for a plant instead of having decisions made and the plant been cared for, for them by the institutional staff, as was the case for the control (second/comparison) group. Also, the ratings of questionnaire and behavioral measures of certain aspects of behavior such as alertness, active participation, and a general sense of well-being were tested for statistical significance (Langer and Rodin, 1975, p.191).

The study also showed that with this control the participant was documenting happier feelings. This experiment, with the happier feelings, is the beginning of studies proving that if a person is successfully taught or has the right subconscious push to controlling their feelings can live a mentally healthier life. The results support the hypothesis because they thought if the patient believed, even subconsciously, that they could control their emotions then they would be able to. The uncontrolled group showed that with that push they were more positive in their documentation of their feelings. The belief in success created

Psychologists have not located assured causes that lead people to well-being. David G. Myers in his article “The Funds, Friends, and Faith of Happy People” published in the American Psychologist (2000) and Michael Wiederman in “Why It's So Hard to Be Happy” published in the Scientific American Mind (2007), discuss the reasons which lead people to be happy, and the factors which contribute to unhappiness.