Institutional care for seniors offers a cultural repository for fears
and hopes about an aging population. Although enormous changes have
occurred in how institutional care is structured, the legacies of the
poor house still persist, creating panicked views of the nursing home as
a dreaded fate. The paradoxical nature of a space meant to be both
hospital and home offers up critical tensions for examination by age
studies scholars. The essays in this book challenge stereotypes of
institutional care for older adults, illustrate the changes that have
occurred over time, and illuminate the continuities in the stories we
tell about nursing homes.