Browsing by Author "Travis, Shirley S."

Now showing 1 - 12 of 12
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    Aging in place: functional environments: a survey and case study in Floyd County, Virginia
    Barnes, Laquita Dawn (Virginia Tech, 1996-05-13)
    The problem addressed in this study was: What home modifications are made to residential environments to meet the functional capabilities of the aging in place audience? The study was conducted in two phases. In Phase I 102 Floyd County, Virginia, adults 65 years of age or older were interviewed in order to identify their task capabilities and identify the modifications being made to meet their environmental needs and task capabilities. Phase II consisted of a case study of six females taken from the Phase I sample group. This section of the study focused on the modifications identified in Phase I, the techniques used, and the reasons they were made. The findings indicate that 26% of the adults in the study were experiencing difficulty with at least one Activity of Daily Living, 33% were experiencing difficulty with at least one Instrumental Activity of Daily Living. However, like many older adults, these individuals had a relatively high function level and wanted to stay in their home as long as possible. Modifications are being made in order to equalize the participants' function level and the characteristics of the living environment. Housing education programs should be targeted toward the elderly and their family members and provide more information relating to aging in place. Professionals in housing and related fields should have the knowledge necessary to advise clients on making decisions to help insure their ability to live independently as they age.
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    Commitment in long term cohabiting couples
    Galway, Alison (Virginia Tech, 1994-04-05)
    Researchers on close relationships presupposed marriage as a central measure of successful commitment and identified a mix of structural and personal motives underlying commitment. Debate on how to measure and predict commitment has been prompted by its conceptual complexity and the importance of its role in relationship maintenance. This study focused on five couples together for at least 13 years outside the institutional grooves and prescribed roles of marriage. Johnson's (1991a) social-psychological model of commitment types embedded within a social structure guided the research. The couples defined commitment, discussed a challenging time in the maintenance of their relationship, and responded to specific questions. Data analysis resulted in development of a three dimensional model of commitment phenomenology. Dimensions include types of commitment from Johnson's model (1991a); commitment contexts of time and society expanded from Johnson's model; and the expression of commitment (awareness, salience, plans, or behavior) implied in Johnson's model but made explicit in this model.
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    Diet compliance of home care clients with diabetes mellitus
    Beemer, Abigail M. (Virginia Tech, 1993-06-06)
    Home health services are increasing for elderly individuals diagnosed with chronic diseases which are often treated by diet modification. This study was undertaken to evaluate the diabetic homebound client's understanding of and compliance to his/her prescribed diet. An interviewer assisted modified food frequency and food habit questionnaire was completed by 20 male and 28 female home care clients, ranging in age from 51 to 91 years. Living in a metropolitan area, these respondents met the Medicare definition of homebound and were diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. Computer driven dietary analysis was completed from questionnaire responses to estimate the food and nutrient intake of the home care clients. Calculated food intake was compared to physician diet orders taken from the home care medical record and to respondents' verbalization of their diet orders. This comparison was based on the composite diet and the components of energy, sodium, and cholesterol or fat. These findings were evaluated according to sex, age, length of time respondent had been diagnosed as diabetic, and a vulnerability index based on living situation using Chi square methods.
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    The effects of visual barriers on the exiting behavior of residents in a dementia care facility
    Dickinson, Joan Ivers (Virginia Tech, 1993-12-05)
    Unsafe exits from dementia care units present problems for residents and pose ethical dilemmas for caregivers. The purpose of this experimental research was to determine whether visual barriers reduced the exiting behavior of residents in a long-term care facility. A visual barrier was defined as one that appeared to be an obstruction, but that did not impede egress through the door. The study was conducted in a 30-bed dementia care unit and was limited to the emergency exit door where an alarm sounded each time the panic bar was touched. An “exit" was defined as a resident touching the panic bar and sounding the alarm. The sample consisted of 3 females and 6 males who attempted to exit the unit at least once during baseline condition. All residents were diagnosed with some form of dementia. The tests were conducted under three visual barriers and one baseline condition. Each condition was observed for seven days from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. The schedule was as follows: Baseline Condition: No experimental manipulation was used. This observation provided a comparison for the three test conditions. Test Condition 1: Mini-blinds that covered the glazing of the door. Test Condition 2: Cloth panel that covered the panic bar of the door. Test Condition 3: Both the mini blind and the cloth panel. During baseline collection, 9 residents triggered the alarm for a total of 120 attempted exits. Test condition 1 decreased exiting to 73 attempts. During test condition 2, 5 attempted exits occurred, and 18 attempted exits occurred during test condition 3. Statistical analysis included Friedman’s Rank test for correlated samples and Wilcoxon Sign Rank tests for treatment versus control comparisons. Test conditions 2 and 3 significantly reduced attempted exits while test condition 1 was not statistically significant. In conclusion, visual barriers were a safe and effective method for deterring resident exiting for this particular nursing home.
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    Families Taking Charge. Maintaining Health
    Travis, Shirley S. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2009-05-01)
    Families Taking Charge is a multi-part series for individuals and families experiencing financial stress as a result of difficult economic times. This publication focuses on maintaining health during tough times.
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    Meanings and motivations among older adult mall walkers: a qualitative analysis
    Duncan, Harriet H. (Virginia Tech, 1993-03-30)
    This study employed the grounded theory methodology suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1990) to analyze and explore the meaning of and motivation for mall walking among a group of older, rural, independently living adults. Interviews were conducted with 14 respondents aged 62-81 and participant observation was conducted at a rural mall. Mall walking was initially motivated by three conditions: (a) expert-directed advice, (b) self-determined goals, and (c) the invitation of significant others. Four major factors encouraged continued participation in mall walking: (a) the need to create work roles after retirement, (b) fear due to perceived vulnerability in the community, (c) social supports from family and peers, and (d) a sense of membership in a community of older adults that was generally time and place specific. Members of this mall community shared activities, routines, rituals, beliefs, and a sense of belonging. Despite medical disorders, all of the respondents said their health was good. After initially responding to medical advice to walk, walkers paid little or no attention to medical problems. These older adults did not continue to mall walk in response to expert medical direction. This finding suggests that health promoting activities should not rely on the continuing influence of medical advice to encourage adherence or ongoing participation in health promoting activities, and should instead attend to the social constructs of health and wellness. An important implication for future research is the finding that mall walking was a quasi-work activity, not exercise. Walkers created "work" routines and roles that replaced those lost upon retirement. The equation of mall walking with work has implications for both the design and the implementation of health promoting activities for older adults.
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    Parental role behavior, psychological centrality and self-esteem among the elderly
    Clark, Warren G. (Virginia Tech, 1993-11-09)
    Previous research has failed to identify a strong relationship between parental role involvement and self-esteem of parents despite theoretical and intuitive support for the prediction. An explanatory model of the interaction between role occupancy, psychological centrality of the role, and self-esteem among older parents was presented. Data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) were used to test a path model examining the effects of the roles of parent, spouse, and worker, as well income, age, sex, and health on self-esteem. The data failed to support the model as presented. Role involvement did not affect self-esteem and psychological centrality had a direct effect instead of the proposed interactive effect. Health was the strongest predictor of self-esteem. In contrast to previous research, age negatively affected self-esteem in this sample.
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    The provision of staff development programs in Virginia adult day care centers
    Hensley, A. Dawn (Virginia Tech, 1994-11-15)
    This study examined a neglected area in long term care and adult day care research: staff development. The specific purposes of this study were to describe the provision of a comprehensive staff development program in adult day care centers in Virginia in order to (a) differentiate those centers providing only the minimum required inservice training from those centers providing more comprehensive staff development programs and (b) define what meaning is placed upon staff education programs by center administrators. A mail survey design was used for this study. The questionnaire developed for the study has three sections: (a) center characteristics, (b) staff characteristics, and (c) the meaning of staff development. Quantitative analysis was conducted on the first two sections while qualitative analysis was used to examine the final section. A conceptual model for adult day care staff development programs was also developed for the study. The model was used to compare the staff development programs across adult day care centers in Virginia. The sample included all licensed adult day care center administrators in Virginia (n=43). The total response rate for this survey was 88%. Results were discussed in terms of the provision of staff development programs, as well as the meaning that was placed on staff development by the responding center administrators. The results showed that much importance is placed upon staff development programs by the center administrators and they follow through with this by providing a well rounded staff development program for their staff.
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    Self-care dependency among elders in long-term care settings
    Travis, Shirley S. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985)
    General acceptance of a pattern of activities of daily living (ADL) dependency has led to the use of an additive method of determining self-care dependency and need for long-term care. This traditional method of determining ADL levels is convenient, and it is practical to the extent that individuals in a long-term care population do fit a scaled pattern of dependency. This research was based on 3611 cases from the Preadmission Screening Program of the Virginia Medical Assistance Program. Tabular and staged logistic regression analyses examined: 1) characteristics of this group of long-term care elders, 2) the extent of ADL divergence in various recommended care settings, 3) the relationship between rehabilitation status and ADL divergence, 4) other factors influencing divergence from the ADL dependency hierarchy. The results of this study demonstrated that a large proportion of those screened did not match the original Index of ADL. Therefore, the justification for counting ADL dependency, based on an underlying hierarchy of ADL, was not upheld. Further research was indicated for improving eligibility and placement criteria that would reflect a fluid rather than a static system of long-term care. For example, rehabilitative trajectory could serve as an indicator of projected changes in assistance for self-care.
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    Thoughts, feelings, and actions: a retrospective study of the coping efforts of pediatric cancer patients in the context of the home, institution, and community
    Britt, Deanna C. (Virginia Tech, 1992-10-04)
    This study was a retrospective examination of the experiences of pediatric cancer patients and their families from a contextual perspective. The home, institution, and community contexts were investigated to reveal their influences on the coping efforts of the study participants. Ten families of children with cancer were interviewed, and data were analyzed qualitatively. Walker's (1985) family stress model and Lazarus' (1984) coping paradigm guided the study. The findings indicated that children were ambivalent in their attitudes toward the disease process. While they did not enjoy painful procedures, sickness, frequent hospitalizations, and baldness, they did welcome the special attention brought about by these stressors. Many of the children in the study understood the impact of their illness on the family. They felt guilty about family financial pressures, parental marital problems, and sibling conflicts that resulted from their cancer. Most feared relapse and death but hid their feelings to protect their parents. Mothers handled the stress of their child's illness by learning all they could about the disease, focusing completely on the sick child, and protecting the child from further harm. Fathers tended to take on the role of "strong one" while worrying about finances and attempting to keep the families together. Differing ways of coping between mothers and fathers often caused feelings of resentment and marital difficulties. Parental attitudes toward the staff at the medical center varied from trust, to wariness, to dependency. Parents enjoyed the support of family, friends, and community during the diagnosis phase, but felt bitter about the lack of support they received during the treatment and completion stages. Some parents believed that their exposure to the stressors of the illness process led to personal growth that they would not have experienced otherwise. Many parents emerged from the cancer ordeal with a desire to help others who were battling childhood cancer. They became involved in a variety of community agencies that served the families of children with cancer.
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    Transactions between individuals and family and work environments: a qualitative analysis of workers' adaptation to organizational restructuring
    Chafin, Carol Graybeal (Virginia Tech, 1992-03-16)
    In this study, ecosystems were examined to reveal the adaptational processes of individual, family environments, and work environments during and following organizational restructuring. Reorganizing the workplace was expected to lead to changes in the employee's organizational ecosystem as well as the family ecosystem. Transactions between the family and work ecosystems and the individual were examined. The sample of 10 women and 5 men were from a restructured state agency. Transactional human ecology provided the theoretical framework for the study. In-depth interviews were used to gather the data. Document analysis and personal viewpoint provided additional data. Experiences that facilitated the adaptation process were individuals' choosing change, work support groups, families who listened, personal attitudes, and manager's style. Bringing a language of community and concepts of support from the family environment into the work ecosystem also aided adaptation. Experiences that hindered adaptation were the competitive hiring process, conflicts between team work and function work, misinformation, and "little bureaucratic things." In addition, apparent contradictions between the rhetoric of the restructuring vision and reality from the participants' perspective hampered adaptation. Analysis of the collected data provided the beginning of a grounded theory of adaptation to organizational restructuring. Under restructuring implemented in a manner like that at the agency, employees remaining after the downsizing required time to adapt. They also needed time to grieve for their colleagues who were laid off. Participants' feelings of uncertainty and tension increased if they did not have time to adapt to the new structure and to grieve for laid off colleagues.
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    The use of tape patterns as an alternative method for controlling wanderers' exiting behavior in a dementia care unit
    Hamilton, Claire L. (Virginia Tech, 1993-05-01)
    The number of elderly people moving into long-term care facilities is expected to increase as the population of people 65 and older continues to rise at a significantly high rate. Simultaneously, the number of people expected to be diagnosed with dementia will also increase unless a cure for this devastating disease is found. In the meantime, caregivers face many problems in providing healthy and humane treatments. One such problem that is a major concern for caregivers is controlling wandering behavior. This behavior often places patients in life threatening situations, and the current methods used by many facilities do not promote a high quality of life. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of various tape patterns on the wandering behaviors of residents living in a special dementia care unit in Heritage Hall Nursing Home, Blacksburg, Virginia. Similar studies revealed that alternative methods using tape patterns could reduce exiting attempts at a fire exit door or could possibly increase these attempts. In order to address these inconsistencies, exiting attempts at a fire exit door were recorded during one baseline and two similar test conditions. It was found that exiting attempts was a serious problem in this unit as 40% of the residents attempted to exit the faci I ity during the study. The use of tape patterns reduced exiting attempts by 19.05% and 11.12%; however, this reduction was not statistically significant. In conclusion, the use of these tape patterns affected wandering behavior differently for each of the residents, suggesting that a multi-method approach for controlling exiting behavior may prove to be more successful when dealing with a heterogeneous sample and their multi-needs.