Television in the Nursing Home

Book excerpt: Television in the Nursing Home: A Case Study of the Media Consumption Routines and Strategies of Nursing Home Residents is a three-stage ethnographic study of media use by the elderly in long-term care facilities. This research concludes that watching television is the most prevalent and pervasive activity for patients. Activity directors can now learn how television and media can offer diversion, enhancement of personality, awareness, and sociability to their patients and offers suggestions on roommate coordination, selection of appropriate media, and communication resources. Containing the latest knowledge involving communication and gerontology, Television in the Nursing Home will help you offer programs that will meet the demands of an expanding elderly population. Developed as a perspective for examining patterns of social interaction, Television in the Nursing Home gives suggestions on how you can use the media to create new activities for patients, maximizing the television as a resource for the elderly. You will gain valuable insight on: proof to dispel the myth that television in long-term patient care causes withdrawal and depression a breakthrough in the treatment of media and aging, enhancing media-based activities and the use and purchase of electronic equipment for care facilities studies on how and why television is the most accessible medium of communication information for the development of new media designed specifically for use by the elderly creation of media-centered activities that recognize the potential for therapeutic use of communication technologies in the nursing home The research presented in Television in the Nursing Home establishes the fact that television consumption, once thought to be problematic, should be seen as desirable and necessary. This important book also proves how television is a resource that provides comfort, self-expression, and sociality. This first-ever study will convince you that television and media use in long-term care is beneficial and essential to the wellness of your patients.