Browsing by Author "Kuivalainen, Rosanna"

This study examines how the elderly people’s ability to function is considered in a retirement home’s internal supervision plan. This study has been inspired by the increased amount of elderly people in Finland and the problem of how to secure a meaningful aging for them. This study wants to take part in the discussion of supporting elderly people’s ability to function in habitation. This study has been carried out by using method called theory based content analysis. The research material consists of internal supervision plans of three of the Helsinki city’s retirement homes. All of the supervision plans are from the year 2015.The supervision plans have been analysed utilizing the theory by professor Eino Heikkinen (2002). Heikkinen’s theory examines the factorizations between the ability to function and the actual action especially in older age. As a result of the study I have formed five categories which present the ways of how the ability to function has been expressed in the internal supervision plans. These five cate-gories are 1. Social support, 2. Physical environment, 3. Response (goals, motives and rea-sons), 4. Recreating and weakening and 5. Compensation, adaptation, optimization and se-lection. Some of the five cathegories and the lower cathegories and – groups were emphasized more frequently than the others in the supervision plans. The plans examine di-rectly the ability to function very shortly. The resident’s right to participate in the planning of his/her care and the retirement home’s policies are described essetial in the supervision plans. Also the retirement home’s role as a secure and constantly developing environment is strongly emphasized in the plans. On the other hand for example the control of excercise, outdoor activities and the possibility to use information technology are not directly handled in the supervision plans.