Mental Illness in Assisted Living: Challenges for Quality of Life and Care

ABSTRACT

An unknown number of mentally ill elders in the United States receive care in assisted living, along with persons facing physical or cognitive challenges. While dementia is familiar in assisted living, our data indicate that neither staff nor residents are prepared to work or live with the mentally ill. Challenges are created for professionals, since these residents bring diverse needs. Daily interresident interactions are also disrupted or stressful. Qualitative data describe the impacts on quality of resident life as well as care and management dilemmas identified within five assisted-living settings having varying presence of mental illness among residents.

KEYWORDS:

• mental illness
• assisted living
• ethnography
• quality of life
• health care

Funding

This study was funded by the National Institute on Aging (1R01AG032442, Robert L. Rubinstein and Ann Christine Frankowski, Principal Investigators, IRB Protocol #s: Y10AF21138 and Y13AF21058).