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Finding the Right Home—and Contentment, Too 找到合适的家  找到满足感 When your elderly relative needs to enter some sort of long-term care facility—a moment few parents or children approach without fear—what you would like is to have everything made clear. 【重点词汇】 1.facility [fə'sɪləti] n. 设施；设备 e.g.: In 1989, he and his wife Raisa personally visited the facility, above. 2.approach [ə'prəʊtʃ] v. 靠近 e.g.: Winter is fast approaching. 【参考译文】 当你家年老的长辈需要入住某种长期护理机构时——几乎所有父母或子女这一刻都会感到担忧——你想要做的就是把所有情况都搞清楚。 Does assisted living really mark a great improvement over a nursing home, or has the industry simply hired better interior designers? Are nursing homes as bad as people fear, or is that an out-moded stereotype （固定看法）? Can doing one’s homework really steer families to the best places? It is genuinely hard to know. 【重点词汇】 3.improvement [ɪm'pruːvm(ə)nt] n. 改进，改善；提高 e.g.: Let us explore the possibilities for improvement. 4.stereotype ['sterɪə(ʊ)taɪp] n. 固定看法；陈腔滥调 e.g.: First, add the stereotype to this class. 5.steer [stɪə] v. 控制，引导；驾驶 e.g.: The fan's feelings finally became impossible to steer. 6.genuinely ['dʒenjuinli] adv. 真诚地；诚实地 e.g.: They must genuinely like one another, and work well together. 【参考译文】 辅助生活社区真的就标志着比私立养老院有巨大的改进吗？或仅仅是因为这个行业雇用了更好的室内设计师？私立养老院真像人们担心的那样糟糕？还是那只是人们一种过时的固定看法 ？做好准备工作真能引导家庭找到最好的地方吗？这真的很难说。 I am about to make things more complicated by suggesting that what kind of facility an older person lives in may matter less than we have assumed. And that the characteristics adult children look for when they begin the search are not necessarily the things that make a difference to the people who are going to move in. I am not talking about the quality of care, let me hastily add. Nobody flourishes in a gloomy environment with irresponsible staff and a poor safety record. But an accumulating body of research indicates that some distinctions between one type of elder care and another have little real bearing on how well residents do. 【重点词汇】 7.assume [ə'sjuːm] v. 假定；设想；承担 e.g.: We only assume that they should be into both genders at all. 8.characteristics [,kærəktə'rɪstɪks] n. 特性，特征；特色 e.g.: Parents transmit some of their characteristics to their children. 9.flourish ['flʌrɪʃ] vi. 活跃；处于旺盛时期 e.g.: Wildlife seems to flourish in the area. 10.irresponsible [ˌɪrɪˈspɒnsəbl] adj. 不负责任的 e.g.: It was irresponsible of you to leave her alone. 11.indicate ['ɪndɪkeɪt] v. 表明；指出；预示 e.g.: Both sides indicated a willingness to solve the problem. 【参考译文】 我认为老人住什么样的护理机构可能并没有我们设想的那么重要，这种提议将会使事情变得更加复杂。成年子女开始寻找护理机构时所要求的服务特色对将要入住的老人未必会有影响。我抓紧补充一下：我不是在讨论服务质量。在一个工作人员不负责、安全记录不佳的阴郁环境中，没人能好好生活。但是越来越多的研究表明，不同类型护理机构的一些区别对入住老人生活的好坏影响不大。 The most recent of these studies, published in The journal of Applied Gerontology, surveyed 150 Connecticut residents of assisted living, nursing homes and smaller residential care homes (known in some states as board and care homes or adult care homes). Researchers from the University of Connecticut Health Center asked the residents a large number of questions about their quality of life, emotional well-being and social interaction, as well as about the quality of the facilities. 【重点词汇】 12.survey [ˈsəːveɪ] vt. 调查 e.g.: I suggested they do some experiments, or at least a survey. 13.residential [rezɪ'denʃ(ə)l] adj. 住宅的 e.g.: It is the model of the American city that dominates, with its office blocks, residential complexes and shopping centres. 14.emotional [ɪ'məʊʃ(ə)n(ə)l] adj. 情绪的 e.g.: He fuzzed up the plot line with a lot of emotional nonsense. 【参考译文】 这些研究中，最近的一项发表在《应用老年学杂志》上，该研究调查了康涅狄格州150名生活在辅助生活社区、私立养老院和较小的安老院（在一些州被称为膳宿照顾之家或成人护理之家）的入住老人。康涅狄格大学健康中心的研究人员向这些入住老人询问了大量关于生活质量、情绪健康、社会交际以及机构服务质量等方面的问题。 'We thought we would see differences based on the housing types,” said the lead author of the study, Julie Robison, an associate professor of medicine at the university. A reasonable assumption—don’t families struggle to avoid nursing homes and suffer real guilt if they can’t? 【重点词汇】 15.assumption [ə'sʌm(p)ʃ(ə)n] n. 假定；设想 e.g.: He based his assumption of her guilt on the fact that she had no alibi. 16.struggle ['strʌg(ə)l] v. 奋斗，努力 e.g.: They have learned to struggle against adversity. 【参考译文】 “我们以为调查结果会基于居住机构类型而有所不同，”该研究的第一作者、康涅狄格大学的医学副教授朱莉·罗宾逊说。这是一个合理的假设——很多家庭都努力避免选择养老院，如果不能避免则会心怀内疚，难道不是吗？ In the initial results, assisted living residents did paint the most positive picture. They were less likely to report symptoms of depression than those in the other facilities, for instance, and less likely to be bored or lonely. They scored higher on social interaction. 【重点词汇】 17.interaction [ɪntər'ækʃ(ə)n] n. 相互作用 e.g.: But you only get the maixum, benefit if you implement all of them, because their power comes from their interaction. 【参考译文】 最初的结果显示，在辅助生活社区的入住老人情况的确最乐观。举例来说，比起其他机构的入住老人，他们不太可能报告沮丧的症状，也不太可能感觉无聊和孤独。他们在社会交际方面得分较高。 But when the researchers plugged in a number of other variables, such differences disappeared. It is not the housing type, they found, that creates differences in residents’ responses. “It is the characteristics of the specific environment they are in, combined with their own personal characteristics—how healthy they feel they are, their age and marital status, ” Dr. Robison explained. Whether residents felt involved in the decision to move and how long they had lived there also proved significant. 【重点词汇】 18.plug [plʌg] v. 插入；塞住 e.g.: Plug it into your router. 19.involve [ɪn'vɒlv] v. 包含；牵涉 e.g.: However, the use of these materials does involve some inherent questions. 【参考译文】 但是当研究人员加进一些其他变量时，这些差异消失了。他们发现，不是居住机构的类型造成了入住老人回应的差异。“是他们生活的特定环境的特点和他们自身的性格特点——他们对自身健康状况的感知、他们的年龄和婚姻状况——的结合造成了差异，”罗宾逊博士解释道。入住老人是否觉得自己参与了搬家决定及他们的居住时间被证明都有重要影响。 An elderly person who describes herself as in poor health, therefore, might be no less depressed in assisted living (even if her children preferred it) than in a nursing home. A person who bad input into where he would move and has had time to adapt to it might do as well in a nursing home as in a small residential care home, other factors being equal. It is an interaction between the person and the place, not the sort of place in itself, that leads to better or worse experiences. “You can’t just say, ‘Let’s put this person in a residential care home instead of a nursing home—she will be much better off, ’” Dr. Robison said. What matters, she added, “is a combination of what people bring in with them, and what they find there.” 【参考译文】 因此，一位认为自己健康状况不佳的老人住在辅助生活社区并不会比住在私立养老院抑郁程度轻（虽然她的儿女们更倾向于为她选择辅助生活社区）。在其他因素相同的前提下，一位能够全身心投入到将要搬去的地方并有时间适应的人在私立养老院和小安老院都能生活得一样好。人和环境之间是相互影响的，并不是环境本身导致更好或更糟的经历。“你不能说，‘让我们把人送到安老院而不是私立养老院——她会过得更好，’”罗宾逊博士说。她补充道，重要的是“老人自身所具备的性格和他们在环境中的感受的结合。” Such findings, which run counter to common sense, have surfaced before. In a multi-state study of assisted living, for instance, University of North Carolina researchers found that a host of variables—the facility’s type, size or age; whether a chain owned it; how attractive the neighborhood was—had no significant relationship to how the residents fared in terms of illness, mental decline, hospitalizations or mortality. What mattered most was the residents‟ physical health and mental status. What people were like when they came in had greater consequence than what happened one they were there. 【重点词汇】 20.consequence ['kɒnsɪkw(ə)ns] n. 结果；重要性 e.g.: What will the consequence be? 【参考译文】 这些违背常识的发现以前也曾提出过。例如：在一项辅助生活社区的多态研究中，北卡罗来纳大学的研究人员发现许多变量——机构的类型、大小或成立了多长时间；是否属于连锁机构；周围街区的吸引力——和入住老人在生病、情绪低落、住院治疗或死亡方面的遭遇没有显著联系。最重要的是入住老人的身体健康和精神状态。老人们搬来时的状态比他们入住之后的遭遇起到的作用更大。 As I was considering all this, a press release from a respected research firm crossed my desk, announcing that the five-star rating system that Medicare developed in 2008 to help families compare nursing home quality also has little relationship to how satisfied its residents or their family members are. As a matter of fact, consumers expressed higher satisfaction with the one-star facilities, the lowest rated, than with the five-star ones. (More on this study and the star ratings will appear in a subsequent post.) 【重点词汇】 21.release [rɪ'liːs] n. 发布 e.g.: The release of Nelson Mandela was watched by millions of people on TV. 22.satisfaction [sætɪs'fækʃ(ə)n] n. 满意，满足 e.g.: Once his voice was percolating to her satisfaction. 23.subsequent ['sʌbsɪkw(ə)nt] adj. 后来的，随后的 e.g.: If any node in the cluster fails, subsequent requests can be processed by any other node in the cluster. 【参考译文】 当我在考虑所有这些时，一家享有盛誉的研究公司刊发的新闻稿横放在我的桌上，稿子宣称老年人医疗保健制度于2008年开发的帮助家庭比较养老院质量的五星级评估系统与入住老人及家庭成员的满意度之间的关系不大。事实上，消费者对那些被评为最低等级的一星级机构的满意度比五星级的更高。（本研究更多具体内容和星级评定将登在随后的稿件中。） Before we collectively tear our hair out—how are we supposed to find our way in a landscape this confusing?—here is a thought from Dr. Philip Sloane, a geriatrician（老年病学专家）at the University of North Carolina: “In a way, that could be liberating for families.” 【参考译文】 在我们集体崩溃之前，在如此令人困惑的局面中应该怎样找到出路？菲利普·斯隆博士是北卡莱纳大学的老年病学专家，他的想法是：“在某种程度上，那是对家庭的解放。” Of course, sons and daughters want to visit the facilities, talk to the administrators and residents and other families, and do everything possible to fulfill their duties. But perhaps they don’t have to turn themselves into private investigators or Congressional subcommittees. “Families can look a bit more for where the residents are going to be happy,” Dr. Sloane said. And involving the future resident in the process can be very important. 【参考译文】 当然，子女想要去参观考察机构，与管理者、入住老人和其他家庭交谈，尽一切可能履行他们的职责。但是也许他们不需要把自己变成私家侦探或者国会委员会的专门小组。“家人可以多去寻找能使入住老人感到快乐的地方，”斯隆博士说。而且在这个过程中让要入住的老人参与进来是非常重要的。 We all have our own ideas about what would bring our parents happiness. They have their ideas, too. A friend recently took her mother to visit an expensive assisted living/nursing home near my town. I have seen this place—it is elegant, inside and out. But nobody greeted the daughter and mother when they arrived, though the visit had been planned; nobody introduced them to the other residents. When they had lunch in the dining room, they sat alone at a table. 【重点词汇】 24.greet [griːt] v. 欢迎，迎接 e.g.: Greet the little swallow from me, if you should see him again. 【参考译文】 对于什么会给父母带来幸福，我们都有自己的想法。他们同样也有自己的想法。最近，一个朋友带着她母亲参观考察了我在的镇附近一家昂贵的辅助生活社区/养老院。我去过这个地方，内外设施都很雅致。虽然这次参观考察已经和院方约定好，但是她们母女俩到达的时候，没有人迎接她们，也没有人向她们介绍其他的入住老人。在餐厅吃午餐时，她们单独坐在一桌。 The daughter feared her mother would be ignored there, and so she decided to move her into a more welcoming facility. Based on what is emerging from some of this research, that might have been as rational a way as any to reach a decision. 【参考译文】 女儿担心母亲在那里会被忽视，因此她决定把母亲送到一家更热情友好的机构。基于这项研究的发现，这可能是一个理性的决定。 |
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