VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, 2004

Love and space in the nursing home
Karen Bermann

Nursing homes and other institutions designed for persons with impairments are not, in fact, designed for persons with impairments. They are typically designed for the impairments, not the persons, and thereby become a part of the problem by reinforcing physical and cultural manifestations of the impairments. In the essay that follows, I describe an architectural design project in which students were asked to make changes to an existing nursing home for the persons who lived there. This requires not only becoming familiar with the spaces, but with the persons themselves and designing space to help articulate their voices and being.

Key words: Alzheimer’s disease, architecture, bioethics, disability, long-term care, nursing home

Old people’s homes from the perspective of personal life and good interpersonal relations
Jože Ramovš

Five percent of the third generation in Europe needs institutional care. Slovenia has a good public social network of old people’s homes. In the last few years Slovenia is also implementing day care, adult foster care and sheltered accommodations. We are about to introduce house communities and hospice houses. Quality of life in institutions for elderly people depends on the level to which their material and non-material needs are met. Commonly, the material needs are much more assured than personal and interpersonal nonmaterial needs. In order to improve the quality of interpersonal relationships, institutions have to increase individualisation, intimacy, solidarity, capacity for personal communication, and protection of the employed from occupational pathology when working with people. This article describes one such project, developed and implemented by the Anton Trstenjak Institute. It is comprised of five levels: the management of the institution, the personnel, all the users, all the relatives and the social environment of the institution. The project is conceptually and methodically concentrated on intensive social learning about the old age and the complementary intergenerational connections, on training for good intergenerational communication, on the cooperation of volunteers with the institution and on permanent protection of personnel from occupational pathology. This project consists of several programmes: the programmes for raising awareness on the level of the community, the intensive short courses in the small groups for representatives of all five levels, the programmes for self-organisation of a new social network of personal companionship and intergenerational groups based on the principle of voluntariness, the club of relatives, the intervison groups for personnel and other programmes aimed to better inclusion of the institution into the local community environment.

Key words: institutional care for elderly, personal life in the institution for elderly, good interpersonal relations in the institution for elderly, the institution for elderly and social environment

Institutional care of old people in Slovenia
Lidija Apohal-Vučkovič

The article examines the institutional care of old people in Slovenia. In the first part, the author presents the dynamics of founding of the old people’s homes, describes different forms of institutional care and their accessibility. Furthermore, she discusses the restoration of the information system for old people’s homes, which will enable a review of the number of people on the waiting lists for admission into old people’s home and faster accessibility of the information. In addition to that, the article examines the ways of payment for institutional care. The last part of the paper debates on the future development of care for elderly people in Slovenia.

Key words: institutional care, old people's homes, day-care centres, adult foster care, finances, old people, Slovenia

Parochial old people's homes
Tone Kompare

The author describes the first Slovenian old people's home, established by a parish. He outlines the challenges and problems he had to face while establishing such home. He presents, based on his own experiences, several aspects that need to be taken into account while creating an old people's home of this kind. He also critically evaluates the position of such old people's homes in the society. In addition to that, he describes the way the mentioned home operates, gives its specifics and some arguments why this kind of institutions are important as well. The author also mentions the distress of old people when they start living in old people's home and the ways of overcoming it.

Key words: parochial old people's home, Home of Martha and Mary, old people, parish, Slovenia

Animal Assisted Therapy in Old people’s home Ptuj
Nada Fišer, Kristina Dokl

The authors present and discuss the results of the project "Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT)" that is being implemented in Old people's home Ptuj since June 2002. They have introduced animals into various activities of the Old people's home. The authors are presenting the cases where the presence of animals had a positive effect on old people.

Key words: old people, animal assisted therapy, dementia, alcoholism, old people's home residents

Elder care in the municipality Laško
Darja Trupi

The Programme for the Development of Care for the Elderly Until the Year 2005 introduced, parallel to institutional care, organized community help for old people. In the municipality of Laško many different non-institutional and institutional social services for elderly people exist. This article deals with the latest, with the emphasis on the results of the study on home help. The author describes also the case of adult foster care.

Key words: social work, institutional social welfare programmes in Laško municipality, adult foster care