Self Care Lindman

The fear of deportation puts an added burden on the caregiver, who may not be aware of the health care services available. In addition, research suggests that Latinas are less likely to seek outside help as there are few services that address the needs of Spanish speaking individuals. Most live in communities where health and social services are extremely limited (Land & Guada, 2011). Lack of immigration documentation prohibits qualification for mental and health benefits, which adds to additional stress to the caregiver (Dennenberg, 1997; Land, 1994).

Barbara Ehrenreich, Audre Lorde, and Meri Nana-Ama Danquah’s illness narratives do more than recount stories of illness. The narratives depict resistance to normalization or becoming normate by making visible the larger structural inequities. The narratives are showing how the systems that are supposed to aid and heal those who are ill, but are actually reinforcing the inequities.

Latinos, collectively the nation's largest minority group, vary substantially in terms of socioeconomic and legal status, their country of origin and the extent of ongoing contact with that country, their region of residence within the United States, their generation status and levels of acculturation, and psychosocial factors (Elder, Ayala, Parra-Medina, & Talavera, 2009). Due to these various issues navigating the health care system can prove difficult especially when it comes to the end of life care, it is prevalent in the Mexican culture for the elderly to be taken care of by their younger family members such as their children. However, if they have a major illness or the family simply don’t have the ability to take care of them anymore

The writer believed this case to unfortunately be all too common in our society today, people are overworked, over stressed, lack resources, and become desperate for help especially if they are taking care of an elderly parent at the end of their life. The writer feels saddened by the fact that this is a grim reality for many people especially in the Hispanic population as they are taught to take care of and respect their elders, and they are taught not to trust the medical community. An estimated 5.5 million children and adolescents are growing up with unauthorized parents and are experiencing multiple and yet unrecognized developmental consequences as a result of their family's existence in the shadow of the law (Suárez-Orozco, Yoshikawa, Teranishi, & Suárez-Orozco, 2011). Although these youth are American in spirit and voice, they are nonetheless members of families that are "illegal" in the eyes of the law, and are so afraid of deportation that they will keep their family members with them versus seeking help for their medical conditions or sending them to a nursing home.

This study focused on what the Mexican American feel about taking care of their elders at home and the affects it has on them. Also, the aim for this study was to gather information about the culture of this group so it can be used instrument to help this particular group. This was a quantitative study. In this study many different methods were used to gather their information. 193

Authors Paul C. Luken and Suzanne Vaughan did research to determine how independent living and ageing is socially constructed and how housing policies and language need to be modified (Luken and Vaughan 2003). Luken and Vaughan used qualitative research by conducting in depth interviews with five elderly women. Luken and Vaughan defined elderly as being over the age of 60 and each of the elderly women had lived independently for at least six months. Four of the elderly women were from the United States and prided themselves on how they lived alone even though they were lonely and wanted more interaction with their families (Luken and Vaughan 2003). The 5th woman they interviewed was originally from Mexico. She wanted to live with her family, but she would have not received any subsidy from the state if she did because her family’s income was too high to qualify. Therefore, she had to live alone in Section 8 housing. It is interesting to note that she

Social exclusion is characterised by unequal access to resources, capabilities and rights, which leads to health disparities. Immigrants are experiencing a new circumstance and a new culture, they might lose sense of belonging due to limited support from others like relatives and have less connection with local community members. It causes a lot of mental stress on immigrants and do not ask for help in time. Moreover, different religions, beliefs and cultures bring about conflicts between healthcare delivers and patients, even unstable parent-children relationship. These conflicts affect individuals’ health as well. The last but not least important one is the language barrier, one of the factors that causes social exclusion, which blocks immigrants from making connection with local people and having the equal treatment of illness as local people do.

Taking care of the individuals that are getting older takes many different needs. Most of these needs cannot be given from the help of a family. This causes the need of having to put your love one into a home and causing for the worry of how they will be treated. It is important for the family and also the soon to be client to feel at home in their new environment. This has been an issue with the care being provided for each individual, which has lead to the need of making sure individuals have their own health care plan.

Family involvement provides a support system for the patient as well. Similarly, in the Asian culture, family is often strongly involved in the healthcare of a family member. This may be out of love and concern for the individual but it also is enforced by the cultural norm and social pressure (Park, Chesla, Rehm & Chun 2011, p. 2377). With any culture, including Asian Americans, family support may have positive or negative outcomes. Park et al (2011) then states that “Asian American families provided emotional support, strengthened the patient’s sense of belonging and purpose, and provided material support, such as housing and financial assistance” (p. 2377). By having these added support systems, a patient can focus on their health and recovery without having to worry about financial burdens. The elderly are valued with the highest regard in the Asian culture but when an elderly family member becomes ill, the family dynamic and hierarchy is threatened. This can cause added stress for the family, tension among members and may delay the patient’s health and recovery. In some cases, the family members in the Asian culture may become overly involved in the patient’s care completely taking away the patients independence. However, in the healthcare system in the United States, maintaining

Some of these stories were of their own personal experience with loved ones in the hospital. These stories reminded me of Trillin’s distinction between “The Land of the Well People” and “The Land of the Sick People” (Trillin 699-700). I noticed a shift of perception when the person who fell ill was described. Those not acquainted with these individuals saw them differently due to the ‘change’ from their being ill. It was odd to me at first when people thought about my uncle that way, but now I noticed how my perceptions of others also changed whenever somebody else spoke about their

Operating her own agency, Julia Ostropolsky provides supports for senior Russian immigrants who have disabilities. She has been working as a social worker and therapist for nine years. She helps clients contract with pharmacy and doctors because she understands that the misinterpreted information may result harms on their physical well-being. She conducts therapy sections with these seniors, and makes referrals

Residential care is generally viewed in a negative manner and is only considered as a last resort.

In “The choice between gross and spiritual: Some medical preferences” Mary Douglas tries to explain the normative standards that social communities impose on their members. She does this by taking the example of a person who falls ill and what this means for their role in the community and what the now altered to fit their condition norms, would be in society. She describes being sick as “ adopting a role” in society and goes on to describing how being sick one is obligated to step back from their usual influential role and accept the expected ill person part in society. This part as Douglas (1996) explains is done justice to by either behaving like nothing is wrong, or if the illness worsens then by “taking the medicine, keeping to the sick

Society no longer exists in a succinct paradigm that divides people into “healthy” groups and “sick” groups, of which the latter may be reabsorbed into the former; it is much more diverse and includes those who linger in between the groups, as varying degrees of “not quite sick” and “not quite well”. Thus, a new role, or several roles, must be devised in order to accommodate for this dissolution of strict societal roles that people are undertaking, and must transition to account for personal experiences of illness in addition to the social displacement their “sick” status places on

Home care is the basis of Chinese elder care system, which is embedded in its cultural norms. The cultural norms of ’filial piety’ to keep supporting system between generations within the family, economic values to the family and the state, and challenges to traditional familial care, contribute to the home care as the marketisation trend of care for older people in China.