Institutional attention and the disablement process: how safety governance shapes functional trajectories in later life.

The disablement process model identifies institutional environments as modifiers of the pathway from pathology to disability, yet has not specified the mechanisms through which they accelerate or interrupt disablement. This article proposes institutional attention ecology as a theoretical construct...

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Publicado en:Gerontologist Vol. 66; no. 7; pp. 1 - 11
Autor principal: Sabharwal, Neha
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Oxford University Press / USA Jul2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Jul2026
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      pub: Oxford University Press / USA
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        10.1093/geront/gnag076
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        atl: Institutional attention and the disablement process: how safety governance shapes functional trajectories in later life.
      aug:
        au: Sabharwal, Neha
        affil: Vintage Faire Nursing and Rehabilitation, Modesto, California, United States
      su:
        Corporate culture
        Responsibility
        Attention
        Nursing care facilities
        Patient-centered care
        Health facilities
        People with disabilities
        Activities of daily living
        Safety
        Disability determination
        Functional status
        Convalescence
        Accidental falls
      sug:
        subj:
          Corporate culture
          Responsibility
          Attention
          Nursing care facilities
          Patient-centered care
          Health facilities
          People with disabilities
          Activities of daily living
          All Other Outpatient Care Centers
          Nursing Care Facilities (Skilled Nursing Facilities)
          Community care facilities for the elderly
          Safety
          Disability determination
          Functional status
          Convalescence
          Accidental falls
      keyword:
        accountability
        aged
        aging
        copyrightHolder:The Gerontological Society of America
        copyrightYear:2026
        disability
        ecology
        Functional decline
        https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnag076
        inLanguage:en
        internship and residency
        Long-term care
        medical residencies
        mobility
        publisher:Oxford University Press
        Quality measurement
        recovery of function
        relational autonomy
        safety
        sameAs:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42057289/
        skilled nursing facility
        accountability
        aged
        aging
        copyrightHolder:The Gerontological Society of America
        copyrightYear:2026
        disability
        ecology
        Functional decline
        https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnag076
        inLanguage:en
        internship and residency
        Long-term care
        medical residencies
        mobility
        publisher:Oxford University Press
        Quality measurement
        recovery of function
        relational autonomy
        safety
        sameAs:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42057289/
        skilled nursing facility
      ab: The disablement process model identifies institutional environments as modifiers of the pathway from pathology to disability, yet has not specified the mechanisms through which they accelerate or interrupt disablement. This article proposes institutional attention ecology as a theoretical construct addressing this gap: the patterned distribution of organizational vigilance, investigation, and accountability across outcome domains within care institutions. In post-acute skilled nursing facilities, this ecology has become asymmetric, intensely organized around discrete safety events while leaving functional recovery largely outside institutional response. Drawing on the disablement process, relational autonomy theory, and qualitative evidence, we trace how this asymmetry reshapes functional trajectories and the conditions for authentic agency in later life. We propose attention ecology as a meso-level extension linking institutional context to resident-level outcomes. Nationally representative facility-level data (N  = 13,713) support the predicted dissociation: safety performance and functional outcomes are essentially uncorrelated (Pearson r  = 0.018). We advance 3 propositions: attention ecology operates as a formal extra-individual modifier in the disablement process; attention asymmetry produces structurally imposed dependency distinguishable from chosen dependency; and the disablement process in institutional settings is embedded in a moral ecology shaping which forms of diminishment are recognized as problems and which are normalized as aging.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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