requests are made in a command tone (“Lie down!”) or it is expected that the elderly “function” in accordance with the care routine. The commissions often found that the management and nursing staff endeavoured to create a friendly, relaxed and pleasant atmosphere and to use a caring conversational tone. But even in non-verbal communication with the elderly, when carrying out nursing and care, in planning care, in how the daily schedule is structured, in the care of disoriented or dying persons and in documentation, there can be unintentional negative or thoughtless actions vis-à-vis the persons to be cared for. Sometimes, commissions draw attention during their visits to the fact that grab bars, which have been moved aside, cannot be reached by the elderly, that call systems do not work, that body parts are exposed in front of third parties, that the bathroom door remains open during a shower, that orientation aids are lacking, that new residents are not given a tour of the facility and are not shown where the terraces are, etc. The AOB has suggested a project to process the research literature on the subject of “prevention”. University professor Stefan Titscher has submitted a corresponding application-oriented project as project manager to the Jubiläumsfonds of the Austrian National Bank and it has been approved. Prevention to avert human rights violations is the focal point of the study. The study is concentrating primarily on two types of institutions and facilities in Vienna: retirement and nursing homes and hospitals that have psychiatric wards. The key questions are: how can institutions and facilities, where people are being cared for, integrate preventive mechanisms into their work? And if this is increasingly possible, how can they be supported in doing this more effectively and efficiently? In order to answer these questions, the project will try to identify the indicators that (primarily) affect the quality of care. The project is application-oriented, because the results are supposed to provide a scientifically-based aid for the NPM for issues to be examined and monitoring and control methods. The NPM sees such projects as part of its statutory duty to cooperate with the sciences pursuant to Section 7 (3) of the Ombudsman Act (Volksanwaltschaftsgesetz). Research initiated on prevention relevant to human rights Protection of personal freedom while in group homes and other nursing and care institutions and facilities has been regulated by federal law since 2005 (Nursing Home Residence Act). An important pre-condition for the permissibility of a measure that restricts freedom is that there are no milder means available. Therefore, minimising all efforts, frequency, scope and intensity of measures that restrict freedom – i.e. technical, medication-based, communicative and interactive encroachments on freedom (of movement) – are a measure of quality. Care that is based on human dignity and human rights is unthinkable without the active protection of personal freedom. Therefore, this right to respect urges that institutions and facilities Central register for restrictions of freedom 30