Lit Review

Lit Review

            The aging process is inevitable. It will happen to you, it will happen to me, it will happen to our parents, our parent's parents and so it goes.In addition to this being a concept everyone has to deal with in a sense, adult care facilities such as assisted livings are an industry that isn’t likely to go out of business in our lifetime. With that, there is an opportunity that many potential employees can find job opportunities in these communities. It is important to have an understanding of what these workplaces are like. For my senior these I will be attempting to understand how experiences between the different genders of the elderly effect their interactions with employees in assisted living facilities. While there is research published on the psychological soundness of the elderly and studies on cultural issues in communication and aging, there is little research connecting experiences between the genders of the elderly to how they communicate with individuals they interact with. This will be beneficial to anyone who interacts with the elderly whether it be through personal or professional relationships. 

            To come to a conclusion of my research question, I will use ethnographic research to observe how residents in multiple assisted living facilities interact with each other and employees of the facility in which they reside. I would also like to observe interactions with residents and their families, although this will be harder to do naturally. After these observations I will interview the employees of the facility to understand how their relationship with residents, their feelings for their job, and how their communication may vary between residents.To support my decision to conduct both observation and interview I have pulled information from Ethnographic Choices by Bollinger and Menchaca. My observation will include mostly note taking but I will also participate as much as I find appropriate. Observation will help improve my experience as, “When you become more immersed in a community and learn the community ways of being, you begin to see things from a different prospective.” (64)

After observing I will conduct my interviews. Having the period of observation will allow potential for even more questions to be asked. My Interviews will be in person as “face-to-face interview is the most advantageous… this approach allows you to both see the body language and hear the voice and tone of the participant. The combination of nonverbal and verbal signals gives you a fuller understanding of their experiences, thoughts and emotions.” (101)I will record these interactions to transcribe and further analyze to find an answer to my research question and form a thesis. 

            As previously stated, the concept of gender and its influence on communication is researched minimally, I have been able to find sources analyzing the psychological well-being of assisted living residents. This is important to understand for my research as an unstable mental state could cause outliers in my data, these outliers wouldn’t be problematic but will need to be understood. The main purpose of this journal entry is to bring an understanding of how prevalent depression is in assisted living facilities, how difficult it is to recognize and why it is important to address and understand.  “the mental health of elderly people is critically related to their physical health and functioning. Researchers report that many elderly people in residential care suffer from depressive symptoms (Grayson et al.; Lawton et al.). This depression is often unrecognized and untreated and is significantly related to disability and mortality” (Cummings, 293). This thought continues further in the journal and explains “ALFs attempt to minimize resident isolation and bolster social support through congregate living in a homelike atmosphere. Many ALFs also offer a variety of social programs throughout the week. Although research on the effect of social support in residential care communities is extremely limited, findings do suggest that social support variables, such as attendance at social activities, are related to lower levels of depressive symptoms (Mitchell & Kemp, 2000). The portion that sticks out to me is underlined, essentially saying that the social activities in the ALF could minimize the potential of depression. This is important to understand in regard to my research as it will be important to understand how depression could play a part in the results of my observation through interaction during facility activities. In addition, residents that may be depressed both diagnosed and undiagnosed, could (unwillingly) affect the resident’s relationships with those they interact with whether it be employees or family members. The results of this study show that “Consistent with other gerontology studies, female residents suffered from significantly higher levels of depression and lower levels of life satisfaction than male residents. In addition to being female, increased functional impairment and lower levels of self-reported health, satisfaction with social contacts, participation in social activities, and perceived social support were all found to be related to poorer psychological well-being” (Cummings, 299).

            An additional aspect I will be analyzing to help in forming a conclusion will be the cultural aspects in communication and aging. I am expecting that the cultural influence will play a large part between both men and women in how they communicate with those around them as these influences likely shaped their lives affecting what they see as their cultural capital. The interesting aspect with this chapter is that it strictly analyzes the cultural influence of eastern and western cultures and doesn’t include the gender influences that could be present. Even at that, this is an important concept to thoroughly understand before I observe residents. From the Handbook of Communication and Aging Researchit is stated that “culture plays an important role in defining the self (the identity function of culture) and the meaning of and attitudes toward aging, as well the roles that are considered to be appropriate (the group inclusion and intergroup boundary regulation functions) (Pechioni, Ota, Sparks, 174). The chapter then analyzes Eastern and western cultures explaining the Eastern Cultures “have been built around Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism as moral, ethical, and philosophical principals of life (Chang, 1997; Ho, 1994; Kim & Yamaguchi, 1995; Slote & De Vos, 1998; Yum, 1988). By way of formal and informal education, people are socialized to act toward others with human heartedness and other-orientation to achieve group, or collective, goals in harmony with others in the same group (Kim & Yamaguchi, 1995; Markus and Kitayama, 1994; Triandis, 1995)” (Pechioni, Ota, Sparks, 175). Eastern cultures have collectivistic values, and family usually falls in the center. People from Eastern culture usually have string self-awareness and power is based on status and age, with social class being a focus in interactions. People from these cultures respect their elders and are more likely to communicate indirectly. They are considered to work in harmony with other and be strong in group orientation. 

            The western culture, on the other hand, is described to hold the “strong philosophical principle” of liberalism. “The hallmark of liberalism is an encouragement toward the development of an autonomous individual who is capable of making rational choices of his or her own” (Pechioni, Ota, Sparks 176). The power distribution of western cultures is based on social classes more than age and role. People of western cultures are more likely to be explicit in their communication “for the sake of message clarity” (Hall 1976; Kim, 1993).

            These differences are important to understand as the assisted living environment involves a community of elders, while likely from the same area there is the potential to expose residents to new cultures from other residents. Its biggest importance is understanding the cultural influence that may have shaped the residents of these communities.

Both the issues of psychological well-being and culture can be influential to gender dynamics in the assisted living. To continue research, I hope to end my period of observation and my interviews of employees with interviews with residents. It will be a difficult task to get permission to make this possible, but I feel the best way to get insight on the experiences of the elderly would be from the residents first hand. If this isn’t possible, I believe conducting more extensive observation could yield results as well. 

Resources

Bollinger, Christopher, et al. Ethnographic Choices: a Primer on Doing Complex Social Research. Publisher Not Identified, 2014. 

Cummings, S. M. “Predictors of Psychological Well-Being among Assisted-Living Residents.” Health & Social Work, vol. 27, no. 4, Jan. 2002, pp. 293–302., doi:10.1093/hsw/27.4.293. 

Nussbaum, Jon F. Handbook of Communication and Aging Research. Routledge, 2008.