'A disease that makes criminals': encephalitis lethargica (EL) in children, mental deficiency, and the 1927 Mental Deficiency Act.

Encephalitis lethargica (EL) was an epidemic that spread throughout Europe and North America during the 1920s. Although it could affect both children and adults alike, there were a strange series of chronic symptoms that exclusively affected its younger victims: behavioural disorders which could include criminal propensities. In Britain, which had passed the Mental Deficiency Act in 1913, the concept of mental deficiency was well understood when EL appeared. However, EL defied some of the basic precepts of mental deficiency to such an extent that amendments were made to the Mental Deficiency Act in 1927. I examine how clinicians approached the sequelae of EL in children during the 1920s, and how their work and the social problem that these children posed eventually led to changes in the legal definition of mental deficiency. EL serves as an example of how diseases are not only framed by the society they emerge in, but can also help to frame and change existing concepts within that same society.

Negotiating user preferences, discrimination, and demand for migrant labour in long-term care.

The restructuring of long-term care for older people has been marked both by the role of the market and by the role of migrant labor. This article develops the analysis of these processes at the microlevel of the provision of care. It draws on data collected as part of a cross-national comparative study on the employment of migrant care workers in residential care homes and home care services for older people in England and Ireland. The article examines, first, the ways in which divisions of race, ethnicity, and citizenship shape the preferences of service providers/employers and some service users as regards who provides care. Second, it examines how the institutional context of quasi-markets in long-term care shapes the negotiation of demand for migrant labor, the racialized preferences of individual users, alongside the rights of care workers to non-discrimination. It is argued that market-oriented policies for personalization, as well as for cost containment, raise implications for divisions of race, ethnicity, and citizenship in the provision of long-term care. At the same time, those divisions point to the limits of framing care in terms of the preferences of the individual as opposed to the social relations in which care is embedded.

Care of older people in migration contexts: local and transnational arrangements between Peru and Spain.

Care arrangements for the elderly are becoming a main social process in contemporary societies due to socio-political and lifestyle changes over the last few decades. The family and the State play a basic role in the construction of care systems and in the establishment of strategies to access care resources. In the present context of migration, these resources interact at a transnational level, challenging family and State migratory regimes. These new realities need the recognition of basic international social rights, as the experiences of Peruvians living in a migration context in Spain show.

On Lok: a pioneering long-term care organization for the elderly (1971-2008).

On Lok is a pioneering nonprofit organization that has delivered services to the frail and elderly since its founding in 1971. The agency began as a grassroots effort focused on improving the health care available to older adults living independently in the community. Over its 40-year history, On Lok has evolved into a $70 million nonprofit human service organization with a national reputation for innovation as a leading provider of care to frail elderly. The agency has developed its own model of care that has been replicated in cities around the country. The history of On Lok represents the important impact that donor and community support plays in an organization's long-term success.

Historical overview.

Lessons from the past, challenges for the future in family caregiving.

Historical evolution of assisted living in the United States, 1979 to the present.

PURPOSE: This article provides a historical overview of the emergence of assisted living in the United States over a 25-year period to identify goals and key concepts that underpinned the emerging form of care. DESIGN AND METHODS: The method is historical analysis based on records and my own personal experiences in conceptualizing and implementing assisted living in Oregon and nationwide. RESULTS: I identified four time periods: (a) 1979 to 1985, when a paradigm shift occurred on both the East and West coasts, motivated by distaste for nursing facilities and idealistic values regarding residential environments, service capacity, and consumer-centered care philosophy; (b) 1986 to 1993, when providers, consumers, and state governments became interested and four identifiable types of assisted living (hybrid, hospitality, housing, and health care) appeared, each of which informed the evolution of assisted living; (c) 1994 to 2000, a period of expansion, Wall Street money, dilution of the ideals, and emerging quality concerns; a crisis of confidence and a crossroads for assisted living; (d) 2000 to the present, a time of regrouping, slow-down in growth, and reexamination of earlier efforts to define and set standards for assisted living. IMPLICATIONS: Well-conceptualized and designed research may provide a mechanism to suggest practice, regulatory, and payment models. I recommend that researchers conduct studies from the values premises underlying the assisted living approach.