A study of hidden sexuality in elderly people living in institutions

SummarySexuality of the elderly living in nursing homes is a subject ignored if not taboo. A questionnaire of 20 items was built, from the data of the literature, to highlight the existence of the sexuality at the elderly living in old people's home. Two hundred students in care of the sick answered further to their first training course in nursing homes versus medicine service, demonstrate the existence of sexuality at the elderly but forbidden in old people's home. The obtained answers indicate that this negation of the sexuality ensues from the fact that the elderly are perceived not as subjects but as sick by their caregivers. If this position seems normal for the hospital, it is much more open to criticism in old people's home. This study confirms that there is not or too little space of intimacy in old people's homes allowing the elderly to express and to quench this fundamental need.