On Looking Back.

I am not one to dwell on the past, and the reliability of my memory of personal events is a family joke, if not a scandal. I suspect I am not unusual. Still, I think we can all agree that there are times when looking back is a natural, perhaps even inevitable, thing to do. Like about now, for example, at the turn of the century.

Which accounts for the sepia-tinted issue of Nursing Homes/Long Term Care Management that you hold in your hands. We decided about a year ago that it would be fun for us and, hopefully, our readers to look back on the past 100 years of long-term care. Indeed, this magazine has covered about half that period. It is perhaps not generally known that Nursing Homes is the oldest magazine title in the field, having been founded in 1950. Indeed, we were fortunate to be able to delve into this magazine's historical pieces for some of the information that occupies this issue.

The principal "delver" in all this was Managing Editor Linda Zinn. She performed prodigies of textual and photographic research on long-term care while simultaneously shepherding three other Medquest magazines through the production process. Finally, when all the writing and editing was done, she booted this issue of Nursing Homes through, as well. You'll notice that she is a pretty fair historian; read her engaging "A Good Look Back Over Our Shoulders" piece.

Art Director Eric Collander also went the extra mile, leaving aside his affinity for color illustration and arranging the text and the old photographs to bring out the emotion and drama of the history.

Also included in this issue are personal observations by leading long-term care scholars and administrators; organizational histories offered by many of the top associations in the field; an illustrated timeline; and some genuinely educational "advertorial" detailing the histories and millennial thoughts of more than two-dozen companies serving long-term care.

Looking back, one can very clearly see the historical forces that brought longterm care to its current state: vigorous in expanding its services, depressed by adverse financial and regulatory forces, but enlivened by a powerful undercurrent of devotion to the elderly that, in the better organizations, never seems to go away. One gets a strong sense that, at the millennium, long-term care really is at a crossroads--at the end of a century of struggle, at the beginning of a redefinition and fulfillment of its mission.

See what you think as you look back.

Note: Our October cover showing a castle got an unusually vigorous response from readers wanting to know where the lovely structure is. To the best of our knowledge, it is the Eilean Donan Castle, located on the far northwest highland coast of Scotland.