Psychosocial approach for long-term care.

Long-term institutional care in the United States is in the midst of crisis. One of the major reasons for the problems it is encountering is that care and financing mechanisms are structured in terms of the medical needs defined for acute care facilities rather than in terms of the psychosocial needs of long-term care facilities. If the dependency of elderly patients is to be reduced instead of fostered, public policy must become responsive to the true dimensions of long-term care.