Occupational therapist Dianne Winkler, of Melbourne's Monash University, and colleagues collected information from 626 Victorian aged-care facilities about more than 300 residents younger than 60, including an eight-year-old.

One person had lived in an aged-care facility for 23 years.

Mrs Winkler – who surveyed directors of nursing at the institutions – found 7 per cent of younger residents were never visited by a relative and 35 per cent did not receive visits from friends.

Another 9 per cent saw a friend less than once a year. One in five younger residents went outside less than once a month.

"People get admitted to a nursing home and then they kind of get forgotten," Mrs Winkler said. "It's like warehousing people and nothing happens from there. Once you're removed from your community and people don't see you in the street and at social events or parties or out, people kind of forget that you're there.

"And not all, but some, nursing homes are fairly difficult places to visit. Being faced with one of your peers living in an aged-care facility at the age of 40 or 50, it's fairly confronting.

"It does take guts to continue contact with someone who's in that situation."

The study was published in this month's Australian Health Review.

Mrs Winkler, who is continuing the research as part of her PhD, said one of the younger men she had interviewed who had lived in a nursing home in the past spoke of having to go to bed every day at 4pm and of sitting in the same place day-in, day-out.

"There are people who are clearly able to articulate . . . why it's not satisfactory where they're living," she said in an interview.

Aged-care facilities were not designed or adequately resourced to involve younger people in everyday activities or support their continued participation in life, Mrs Winkler said.

Prime Minister John Howard has identified the issue as a priority for his Government.

By Janelle Miles

Article from www.thecouriermail.news.com.au