ABSTRACT
Behavior usually thought to be surprising, or abnormal for normal, competent adult members will be expected, or implicitly defined, as normal for elderly Home residents. It has been stated that the primary purpose of the Home is to shelter and take care of incompetent elderly persons. Some residents in the Home who are viewed as relatively competent and unproblematic are pretty well left on their own after admission. This and other similar features of Home life are peculiarly contradictory to the fact that entrance into the Home is based on the labelling of “incompetent” which residents must have more or less acknowledged when they were admitted. Competent Day Care members are only assigned to group workers after admission and have no individual case workers. Residents in a Home for the Aged are pre-defined as incompetent, and must demonstrate their incompetence in order to gain admission into the Home and be afforded attention there.
