This document, The Dirty Little Secrets of Nursing Homes by Paula Span, focused on the cleanliness of nursing homes and their workers, or really, the lack thereof. It is common sense for a worker to wash their hands before dealing with patients, not to mention a rule of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Unfortunately, with the lack of workers and supplies, cleanliness in the nursing home facilities has been dwindling over the past few years. This means that the patients in these nursing homes, who are more prone to infection as it is, are at a greater risk of getting sick. The article ends with centers that are trying to maintain cleanliness, as we all should when visiting a home. The purpose of this article was to inform potential readers of the not-so-cleanliness of current nursing homes. Paula Span hoped to gain knowledge about the status of nursing homes. Paula's purpose might have been shaped by a personal interest in nursing homes. She could possibly have family in one or she could have an interest in the elderly people. The intended readers were the elderly in the homes, and the family members who have elderly in a home or are thinking about sending them there. They might read the article to find out the conditions of nursing homes in regards to taking their elderly family out or putting them in. Their reading this article was shaped by their need of knowing about nursing homes before sending their family there. The sources in this document were The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and the University of Pittsburgh's gerontologist Nicholas Castle's research. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid were used as a source to enforce the guidelines of the cleanliness of the homes. Nicholas Castle was the nursing home researcher who discovered this trend of unsanitary habits in the nursing homes, therefor he is a prime source in Paula's article. Without Nicholas's discovery of this dirty habit, Paula would have no purpose. The physical context of the document is a nursing home. This environment was the reason for the document as a whole. In the nursing home is where all the information for the article was collected. The nursing home environment was where Nicholas discovered the dirty habits of the workers, and where Paula got her purpose for the article. For social context, Paula gives information about previous cleanliness of nursing home, along with current statistics, as well as guidelines for proper cleanliness.
Culturally, this document will be much
easier for a worker of a nursing home, a elderly person in the nursing home,
and family members of those in nursing homes or thinking about going to a
nursing home. So, a young person who doesn’t really know any elderly wouldn’t
have any interest in reading this article.
