Being in Place:Toward a Situational Perspective on Care

An optimum focus in any care situation is creating and sustaining environments that facilitate an ongoing sense of “being in place” for all involved. Using this rationale, we propose a Situational Model of Care for exploring dynamic relationships among aging persons receiving care, the convoy of persons offering this care and support, and the place where this occurs, as evolving situations throughout the course of a disease. The model is grounded in extant literature and illustrated through a case study derived from in-home observations and interviews. Emphasizing an underlying goal of fostering a sense of being in place as a desirable outcome facilitates situationally nuanced directions in research and clinical care.