Placed in homecare: Living an everyday life restricted by dependence and monitoring: Living an everyday life restricted by dependence and monitoring

Through a sociological case study this article analyses how, seen from a
relational perspective, everyday life for elderly people receiving care in their
own homes is lived with dependence on health-care professionals. The healthcare professionals’ time and tasks are assigned and allocated in advance so
that the elderly people are neither allowed nor able to vary their response in
relation to the situation they encounter. The life of the client is also treated as
though it were a solid, structured everyday life with minimal private time. Work
in the home, for example, household chores and personal care, resembles a
disciplining strategy. The client lives under conditions of monitoring and
control comparable to conditions of imprisonment. The client is subject to the
will of and social intercourse with other people in his own home; he both
knows it is necessary and offers resistance to the conditions. In short, the
authors argue that the homecare service acts as a disciplining practice in
modern society.