Alcohol in Elderly Care : How are the problems handled?

The purpose of our qualitative study is to investigate how the caretakers, in the elderly care, interpret and manage the issue of alcohol problems in elderly people. We have been performing semi-structured interviews on 9 people, on different levels in the elderly care. There were 3 elderly care managers, 1 nurse, 1 assistance administrator and 4 auxiliary nurses, who all, at some level, work with alcohol problems in elderly people. Those interviews were performed singularly, with one exception: we interviewed an elderly care manager and her 2 auxiliary nurses at the same time. To analyse our empirics, we have used the theories of Power and Ageism. Our study shows that the auxiliary nurses, who are the ones who must deal with these problems, have great difficulties to perform their work because they have no qualified knowledge about alcohol problems. In addition, they almost never get the proper information, they don’t have access to guidelines about handling people with alcohol problems and they don’t receive support from their superiors. They have to make the most difficult decisions for themselves without any resources or other guidance