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The Importance of the Physical Environment to Support Individualised Care

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Individualized Care

Abstract

The physical environment is an important part of individualised care. Creating care environments tailored towards the individual person’s needs is essential for high-quality care and is increasingly recognised as being associated with improved health and well-being among older people. Today, care should be holistic and view the person behind the disease, taking that person’s perspective and treating the patient as a unique individual. Despite the emerging focus on individualised care approaches, the physical environment is still not considered as an integral part of care, and relatively little attention has been paid to environmental aspects. However, the physical environment has a great potential to facilitate or restrict care processes in a broad range of care settings, not least in residential care facilities for older people. The present chapter focuses on ways to support the individual in terms of the physical environment.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Health and Social Studies, Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden

    Susanna Nordin & Marie Elf

  2. School of Architecture, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Marie Elf

Authors
  1. Susanna Nordin
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  2. Marie Elf
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Correspondence to Susanna Nordin .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nursing Science, University of Turku Department of Nursing Science, Turku, Finland

    Riitta Suhonen

  2. Department of Nursing Science, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Minna Stolt

  3. Department of Nursing, Cyprus University of Technology Department of Nursing, Cyprus, Cyprus

    Evridiki Papastavrou

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Nordin, S., Elf, M. (2019). The Importance of the Physical Environment to Support Individualised Care. In: Suhonen, R., Stolt, M., Papastavrou, E. (eds) Individualized Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89899-5_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89899-5_19

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-89898-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-89899-5

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