Moving into a long-term care facility has been considered a very stressful event for the elders. Feeling of loss following placement as perceived by the residents, results in many problems, such as lack of a sense of value, and low self-esteem Facing the increased institutionalized elders in Taiwan, it is needed to develop an effective strategy to help the elder residents adapt in a new environment.

Objectives:

1.How did the nursing staff apply the reminiscence care model for the residents in long term care institution?

2.To evaluate the effect of the reminiscence care model on elders adaptation in long term care institutions.

Method:

The quasi-experimental pretest-posttest, control/comparison, follow-up group design was used in this study. Adopting a purposive sampling, four nursing homes and four assisted living care unites in Taichung area were recruited, and randomly assigned into a control group and an experimental group. In total, 263 residents who met the criteria for this study were invited into this study,

The reminiscence care model was implemented individually 1-2 hours each time, once week for one month for the elders. The GPAs (Geriatric Psychosocial Adaptation Scale) for evaluate the effect of elder's adaptation was used in his study, in which three facets of adaptation were included, self-value, sense of belonging, and sense of continuity. Data collections were conducted before the intervention, immediate after, and after four weeks of the intervention. GEE model was applied for data analysis.

Results:

The results showed that elder's adaptation elevated after the reminiscence activity, but slightly decrease after four weeks later. However, the improvement in experimental group also achieved significant level, comparing to the control group. The findings in this study verified that reminiscence would be applicable for clinical situation, and should be beneficial for the residents' adaptation in long term care facilities.