ABSTRACT
Elderly people who enter American nursing homes experience a great deal of anxiety, stress, and depression - especially during the first six months after admission (Oleson and Shadick, 1993; Schneewind, 1990). In the nursing home, routines and tasks precede individual residents' needs (Hepburn et al., 1997; Gubrium, 1975; Williams, 1990), impoverishing already uneasy relationships between residents and care providers. Emphasis on routine physical tasks contributes to residents' dependency (Brandriet, 1995) and learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975). Therefore, care providers view residents through old-age stereotypes (Pietrukowicz and Johnson, 1991) that exacerbate residents' feelings of low self-worth and uselessness. In this typical nursing home environment, residents, families, and care providers become convinced that elders have little to offer and experience — that they cannot reciprocate care, are unable to participate in pleasurable or communal activities, and are incapable of growth. Thus, new nursing home residents often feel invisible - to themselves as well as to others.
