Contemporary Long Term Care Has A 'Normal" HistoryIn today's world in which huge amounts of information can be zapped from one side of the globe to another, staying contemporary has become increasingly challenging. Computer technology is groundbreaking last year, could become obsolete the following year. From furniture to music to fashion, remaining contemporary has become more challenging than ever before. Likewise, contemporary long term care uses the most up-to-date facilities and procedures in assisting those who require significant medical assistance. However, it is based on past concepts of how "normal" behavior should be defined. As America's population continues to age, long term care (LTC) becomes increasingly significant. This involves daily supervision that patients typically older than 65-years-old, receives in his own residence or a nursing facility. Due to old age, injury, or illness, a LTC patient cannot perform basic functions of everyday living, including dressing, eating and walking. Contemporary long term care uses the most modern techniques to ensure that those who receive long-term care, receive the most treatment possible. Contemporary long term care has altered drastically during recent history. In the early 20th century, a disability was perceived as a personal characteristic. A disabled person was one who showed abnormal activity in physical, sensory, cognitive, and psychological areas, and who had a long-term medical explanation for that behavior. This person was typically referred to as disabled. This became the foundation of categorizing disabilities and their treatment. As medical explanations were used to define medical disabilities, medical conditions and their characteristics became more significant in society, ultimately influencing contemporary long term care. Similar to other historical periods, war veterans whose injuries resulted in abnormal behavior were considered as deserving of benefits. However, those citizens who were suspected of having power over their medical state were not. In fact, the severity of the illness was irrelevant in this case. Then in the 1840s, another milestone in long-term care impacted the methodology of contemporary long term care. Dorothea Dix greatly influenced the formation of dedicated institutions for those with descriptions of mental illness. Dix traveled throughout the U.S. and recorded the awful situations of those who were mentally unhealthy. Varying from the approach of contemporary long term care, experts of that era believed that cures existed for all mental sicknesses. As mental institutions experienced problems such as overcrowding, fewer people were cured, so psychiatrists thus declared that mental illness possessed no cure. Consequently, mental institutions were reduced to simply functioning as housing institutions for the mentally ill. Rather than being treated medically, the patients were only supervised. Charity became the means of treating physical ailments. As early as 1902, laws about paying back state employers were created. In fact, the first laws revealing how state workers were to be paid, was created. Then in 1920, the U.S. Congress passed the first law in the country involving the treatment of state workers. Creating workers who were physically affected was a return to the use of productive employment. Of significance during the early to the middle of the 1900s, was the idea of "normal" behavior occurring in individuals, becoming a medical account. Contemporary long term care, though modern, has taken centuries to formulate. Its existence reveals the development of the means by which humans are assessed as "normal." |