Balancing the Tension in Long-Term Residential Care

Pat Armstrong

Refereed Article, 2018

Armstrong, P. (2018). Balancing the tension in long-term residential care. Ageing International, 43(1), 74–90.

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Although high income countries increasingly emphasize care at home, long-term residential care is and will remain the place where some of our most vulnerable live and work. Based on over 500 interviews with the entire range of actors in long-term residential care, intensive observations by interdisciplinary teams of at least 12 in 27 different sites in six countries and on background documents that take context into account, this paper explores tensions in long-term residential care. It argues that recognizing and balancing these tensions is critical to care and constitute promising practices. However, multiple pressures are shifting the balances in these tensions, with for-profit, chain ownership and the increasing pressure to emphasize clinical care among the most powerful forces.