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Sarah Cope

Sarah Cope

University of Canberra, Australia

Title: The performance of caring: The construction of nursing care for people with dementia who live in residential facilities and wander: An interpretive study

Biography

Biography: Sarah Cope

Abstract

Specialized dementia care within the residential aged care sector has undergone significant change over the last few decades. One important shift is in the way that aged care providers market their services in offering specialized care including dementia care. The aim of this research was to gain insight into the perceptions and practices around the direct care giving experiences of care staff that provide care in RACFs to people with dementia who wander. This research adopted a social interpretive framework informed by symbolic interactionism and dramaturgy. Data were generated from eleven focus groups conducted with 48 nursing staff at four NSW/Sydney metropolitan RACFs. Data were analyzed using a symbolic inter-actionist lens and open and focused fracturing of data methods of Charmaz (2011). The key finding was that a social order of practice was constructed in the RACFs through participant interpretations of spatial and temporal frames within the RACF setting. The participants used space and time to organize and mediate the ways in which they worked with people with dementia who wander. The construction of care was also positioned within the social order of the organization and the broader regulatory environment. Thus there existed a tension between the organization of care work in the RACF and the person-centered care approach as advocated by the residential care industry and the nursing profession. The research found that the construction of nursing care within a RACF environment is predominantly framed by efficiency measures that privilege linear clock time and habitual practice over the flexibility required for a person-centered approach to caring for people with dementia who wander.