Nursing Homes of the Past, Present and Future

The concept of Nursing Homes was not yet known to man in his early days on planet Earth. Based on Biblical accounts, people did not have need for such institutions since people then reached ages of around 800 to 900 years. I wonder if they were using the same calendar systems we have now. That could render their reckoning of time measure, and therefore of the value of their age on earth or longevity indicators, erroneous. Nevertheless, we use their data as a benchmark since there is no popular document yet that refutes that.

Most of these early Earth inhabitants died peacefully in old age without today's symptoms of weakness and helplessness. Others died in battles and wars and therefore no care was needed except burial.

From factual historical and fictional readings, later civilisations had very unfortunate fates for the old and dying. They were left alone in the streets or wilderness, some devoured by wild carnivorous animals. It was such for "primitive" man who seemed not to feel guilt in treating their old and dying like a lowly animal. Only the ageing royals were cared for even into their deathbeds in secure castles and palaces up to the last breath.

Nobody can pinpoint a date nursing homes started to come into being. Written accounts in the West indicates the presence of "poor farms" or "almshouses", established and maintained by the state for its impoverished, most aged and incapacitated citizens, alongside the homeless, the inebriated and the insane. These facilities were characterised by dilapidation and inadequate care services. This was a most lowly and shameful way to spend one's end days and states seemed to encourage that stigma of disgrace and humiliation to keep its ageing citizens from relying on it. It was somehow bizarrely been made a "motivating factor" for the productive age group to work hard and prepare for old age.

The elite of those days dreaded that stigma and some women's and religious groups, in order to avoid such fate for their once-respectable members, established the first models of our present-day nursing homes. But these facilities carried with it an exclusivity reserved for "their own" with better care and facilities, in stark contrast to the almshouses.

The New Deal of 1935 helped promote the idea that US elderly citizens should be federal beneficiaries of assistance on the basis of need. The Social Security Act signed by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt provided old age assistance (OAA) grants to retired workers. Non-payment of these benefits to those living in almshouses paved the way to the establishment of private old-age homes, the precursors of the present-day nursing homes.

However melancholy old age seems to be, it is a fact of life and must be confronted like any other worldly matter. It is not a matter to be needlessly worried about. There are various ways we can prepare for that eventuality in this age of opportunities and sophisticated commerce.