Final answer:
True, family roles and relationships do change when a loved one moves to a long-term care facility, involving emotional responses and altered interactions. Elderly individuals may have to adjust their identity within the facility, and cultural differences also influence familial approaches to elder care.
Step-by-step explanation:
It is true that family roles and relationships change when a loved one moves to a long-term care facility. The transition to a care home often requires the elderly to undergo a process of resocialization, which can include losing parts of their old identity and taking on a new one through a process that can be seen as a degradation ceremony. The dynamic shift can provoke various emotional responses from family members, such as guilt, sadness, and anger, due to the caregiving burden and witnessing the decline in their loved one's abilities. In addition, those entering long-term care, including members of the LGBTQ community, may face challenges in expressing their identity and may choose to selectively disclose personal information to feel safer, which further alters familial interactions and relationships.
Furthermore, the responsibility of elder care varies greatly across cultures. In some cultures, like many Asian societies, the family takes on a significant responsibility for the care of the elderly, which is notably different from Western practices where elder care often involves living apart from the family in care facilities. Even within the United States, there are demographic differences in the likelihood of families to place elderly members into assisted living, with Latino, African American, and Asian families being the least likely to do so.
Finally, modern proactive measures such as living wills and medical power of attorney are allowing people to make advance decisions about their elder care, which also affects the family dynamics as elderly individuals gain more control over their future care preferences.