Floating housing is a concept gaining ground in Sweden. The dwellings are different in many ways from traditional homes, not only regarding flotation, but also several other technologies. The purpose of this thesis is to emphasize the qualities that exist in living on water. The ambition was to present a proposal for a floating residential area located in Jönköping, containing homes of varying sizes, and to present their technologies. In order to find inspiration and solutions studies have been made on existing floating homes in Stockholm and Kalmar, focusing on their technical and functional solutions.

This essay deals with the rationale and aims for doing cultural or aesthetic activities and projects in schools, and gives special focus to a specific group of students, attending schools provided at special residential homes for young people (sa?rskilda ungdomshem). These homes receive young people with psychosocial and substance misuse problems and who show tendencies towards criminal behavior. The essay investigates how working with a cultural project in schools at these residential homes is justified and also elucidates how this specific group of students and their problems are constructed in the documents surrounding the project. The essay will further ponder over possible educational and pedagogical consequences of these constructions.The investigation has its theoretical frame work in curriculum theory.

Background: The relationship between advanced age, presence of illness and impaired functioning is well known. A large proportion of the elderly population has an extensive need of care and service and therefore need help from municipal care. Aging is a transition in life and also affects the person's identity and self image, making the person particularly vulnerable and challenging everyday safety. It is therefore of importance to gain knowledge about which factors at individual and organizational level that support a person-centered nursing care for the elderly so that caring responsibilities and staffing of nursing personnel may be scheduled based on need. Aim: This study aimed at describing dependency and care needs of elderly persons living in ordinary housing, sheltered housing and nursing homes.

People who live in northern part of the world spend much more time indoors than those who live in warmer countries. In addition that home should be safe, it should also protect one against heat, cold, sunlight and pollution. The indoor environment is affected by installations, material and how the building is formed. Those anomalies that are visible, felt or smelled can be noticed and be rectified. But it?s much more difficult if these abilities are missing.

Background: The relationship between advanced age, presence of illness and impaired functioning is well known. A large proportion of the elderly population has an extensive need of care and service and therefore need help from municipal care. Aging is a transition in life and also affects the person's identity and self image, making the person particularly vulnerable and challenging everyday safety. It is therefore of importance to gain knowledge about which factors at individual and organizational level that support a person-centered nursing care for the elderly so that caring responsibilities and staffing of nursing personnel may be scheduled based on need. Aim: This study aimed at describing dependency and care needs of elderly persons living in ordinary housing, sheltered housing and nursing homes. Furthermore the study aimed at describing how the dependency was related to the staffing of non-licensed and licensed nursing staff in nursing homes. Method: A descriptive and analytical quantitative method was used in the study.

Studies show that 10-15 percent of Sweden's population, 65 years or older are estimated to have depression or depression symptoms. The symptoms of depression among elderly people are less than symptoms of young people. This could cause that elderly people with depression are not always discovered. Studies show that elderly people who live in residential homes show more signs of depression than elderly people living at home. If elderly people live in a supporting environment, can it prevent that a depression developed.The prevention of depression among elderly people is a topic that is not discussed among previously research.

This essay deals with the rationale and aims for doing cultural or aesthetic activities and projects in schools, and gives special focus to a specific group of students, attending schools provided at special residential homes for young people (sa?rskilda ungdomshem). These homes receive young people with psychosocial and substance misuse problems and who show tendencies towards criminal behavior. The essay investigates how working with a cultural project in schools at these residential homes is justified and also elucidates how this specific group of students and their problems are constructed in the documents surrounding the project. The essay will further ponder over possible educational and pedagogical consequences of these constructions.The investigation has its theoretical frame work in curriculum theory.

The aim of this study was to, on the basis of normalization and autonomy; investigate how staff working in group homes discusses about sexuality of people with an intellectual disability. Our study was based on ten semi-structured interviews of both care staff and heads of group homes to get responses from different levels within the same organization. The empirical material was analyzed through the theory of social constructivism, which focuses on how we construct the world through interaction and language, and the normalization principle whose goal is that all people with developmental disabilities should have the opportunity to live like all other people. We view these theories as useful to gain understanding of the questions in our study. The result of this study showed that the subject only comes up for discussion when problems arise, that the communication on the subject is inadequate and more discussion is requested.

ABSTRACT Background: Aging and losing cognitive and physical functions is difficult. To also be affected by dementia means that you lose some part of your identity and the ability to take care of yourself. It is important to find alternative, non-pharmacological ways to increase health for the elderly and those who are affected by dementia. When dogs are used for therapeutic purposes in health care it is roughly divided into two different forms; AAA (Animal Assisted Activity) and AAT (Animal Assisted Therapy). AAI (Animal Assisted Intervention) is also used as a term, in which AAT is included.

The aim of the study was to understand limitations and possibilities to the discretion of managers in order to fulfill wishes of users. The study is based on six interviews, three with managers and three with staff in common homes for mentally disabled people. The study took place in a municipality in Sweden in the spring of 2010. We used an interview guide with specific themes and questions. The theoretical framework was based on organizational theories as well as theories about management and discretion.

The purpose of this study was to explore the approach of the personal in residential care homes, legal guardians and Refugee secretaries consider as effective in their efforts to care for and guide unaccompanied boys in the Swedish society. With the help of qualitative method and semi-structured interviews, we have taken note of eleven informants? perspective on what approach they believe to be essential in the work of integration process with unaccompanied boys. We used Empowerment and the Swedish Integration Board´s proposal on indicators of integration as a theoretical base. The results show among other things, that our informants believe the keys to integration in Sweden for the unaccompanied youth are the Swedish language, education and a stable social network.

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which incontinence aids, used in local authority/municipal nursing homes, were adapted to the resident?s urine-leakage volume and to find out how nurses perceived the current situation concerning individual testing of incontinence aids in municipal nursing homes. The study method was a quantitative empirical study and was carried out in two phases. The first phase was a weighing test, carried out in three nursing homes, whereby the incontinence aids used by 25 residents during a 48 hour period were weighed. The second phase was the completion of a questionnaire by the municipal nurses working in the same local authority.

Background: High demands are today placed upon Swedish elderly care nurses as more elderly live with multimorbidity while the hospital bed capacity is becoming lower. Aim: The aim of the study was to explore nurses? perception of decision-making in situations with acutely ill patients in nursing homes and which factors may influence the decision about transferring patients to the emergency department or not. Method: This is a qualitative study with a phenomenographic approach. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with 11 nurses working in nursing homes. The data analysis was based on Dahlgren and Fallsberg (1991) data analysis. Result: Three different description categories were presented, which describes variations of the nurses? perceptions.Feeling comfortable in making the decision; which involved the nurses feeling confident in the decision-making about transferring patients to the emergency department or not.Hesitant in making the decision; which described how nurses perceived the decision-making as problematic, with regard to transferring patients to the emergency department.Many wishes to consider in taking the decision; which explained how nurses? decision-making was influenced by requests from the patients or from people close to them.Conclusion:  The study reflected how  supporting and aggravating factors could influence how nurses in nursing homes perceived the decision-making and how nurses have to take in consideration different opinions concerning the decision making process of transferring patients to the emergency department or not.

The aim of this study is to understand which roles institutional personnel in HVB-homes (homes for care or living), that include animals ascribe the animals for the young clients in treatment. Using the termsrole, role-taking, primary socialisation and secondary socialisation within the perspective of symbolic interactionism, we intend to analyse the expericences from the institutional personnel of what roles the animals are ascribed in treatment of young clients. We also wanted to find out if the institutional personnel have certain expectations on the animals as tools in the treatment and whether the institutional personnel believes that the animals have important roles in the treatment of the young clients.To find the answers of our aim and approach to our problems, we have used a qualitative study where we have interviewed six institutional personnel distributed in three different HVB-homes that uses animals in treatment of young clients. Our empirical material shows that the institutional personnel ascribe the animals a variety of roles, which among others are: friendly and familiar, meaningful, safe, comforting and soothing. Other roles that the institutional personnel ascribe the animals for the young clients are: teaching in order to develop empathy and responsibility; helping in therapy situation and having an activating role.

Our purposes with this essay was from the perspective of young people that has completed a stay at HVB-home, their parents and the social welfare secretaries get an apprehension on their way of looking at the purpose of placement in a HVB-home agrees with the comprehensive view of the placement. We also wish to get a picture of what is of important to change in this matter. How do they experience the reasons for the placement, goals and purpose? What positive and negative experience do they have from their placement? What is relevant to change when you look at the different parties' ways of looking at change/progress in this matter? In what different ways do the parties look upon collaboration and how does that effect the treatment? Our qualitative study is built upon interviews with the persons mentioned, upon educational visits to HVB-homes and upon interviews of staff at HVB-homes. The staffs opinion has also been compared with the other perspectives.