Abstract This article is a part of a larger study regarding the place of dying. Through narrative analysis methods, we strived to obtain rich descriptions and idiosyncratic accounts of the experience of dying in institutional settings, predominately in the nursing home. The quality of the physical environment can impede or greatly enhance the extent to which a disabled older person can remain in his or her own home. Most of long-term care is provided by family members. However, as the condition of the care recipient deteriorates and the stress level of the caregiver increases, the need to supplement the informal care with formal care resources grows. Consequently, frail older adults may be relocated to a residential care facility. In other cases they may be discharged from a hospital to these institutional settings. Nursing homes are considered the last resort for frail, old people. Despite attempts to improve the environment of long-term care settings through “cultural change,” the overriding theme of much of the literature about the nursing home experience is one of rejection, loss, and in some extreme accounts, a “double burial” that equates relocation to a nursing home with a person’s final terminus of life.

中文翻译：

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最后的栖息地：在养老院里生与死

摘要 本文是关于死亡地点的更大研究的一部分。通过叙事分析方法，我们努力获得对机构环境中死亡经历的丰富描述和特殊描述，主要是在疗养院。物理环境的质量会阻碍或大大提高残疾老年人留在自己家中的程度。大多数长期护理由家庭成员提供。然而，随着护理对象的病情恶化和护理人员的压力水平增加，用正式护理资源补充非正式护理的需求也在增长。因此，体弱的老年人可能会被转移到住宿护理机构。在其他情况下，他们可能会从医院出院到这些机构环境中。疗养院被认为是体弱老人的最后手段。尽管试图通过“文化变革”来改善长期护理环境的环境，但许多关于养老院体验的文献的压倒一切的主题是拒绝、失去，在一些极端的说法中，是“双重埋葬”将搬迁到疗养院等同于一个人生命的最后终点。