Caring for the Elderly and Their Views on Aging

Caring for the Elderly and their Views on Aging Kesha Edwards ECPI University Nursing 111 Mrs. Shaffer June 8th, 2012 The purpose of this report is to investigate the ageing and life of Ms. Rose Brown, who happens to be one of my residents at the nursing home I am currently employed at; how she feels about ageing in today’s society, and also what she has learned and what she would have done differently. She is 67 years-old, and lives by herself. With this report, I intend to learn about her life condition and, as well suggest and inform her ways to improve her life.

After spending two afternoons interviewing Ms. Brown, I gained some knowledge on how she perceives the aging process and the impact on the quality of her life. Firstly, she assured me that she views aging in a very positive and healthy way. Ms. Brown first stated that aging itself has a bad reputation, but all isn’t bad. “The best thing about aging is the experiences one can acquire and share with younger people. She believes that, a positive attitude and assists in accepting oneself and the physical and psychological changes.

She enjoys the fact that, she is physically fit and cognitively alert. She is positively sure that with the advances made in a health care, the quality of her life will be granted. Also, she enjoys the benefits of being a senior citizen, including discounted travel and fares, lower cost Medicare. Over all, the spare time to do what she loves. However, when I mention about a long term care, such as Nursing home, if for any instance she ever considered going to a nursing home for a better assistance; she paused for a moment, as if was something that made her really sad.

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She replied that, she has no regards on going to a nursing home, in her opinion; nursing home is a place where she would feel isolated of the world and her close friends. Most important, she would feel useless, being in a place that people would do everything for her. Secondly, she is afraid to be neglected and mistreated. Many times she asked herself, will I be happy? Will I be alone or surrounded with happy people? Will I be cared? I also shared with Ms. Brown about different topics concerning elderly, in particular, ageism, social network, and caregiving. On my second interview with Ms. Brown, I decided to bring my Gerontology notebook “ Aging, the Individual, and Society”, so I could share with her some facts about aging, elderly, how society views it, and most important. From the book, we look up about Ageism, I asked her, what she had to say about it and if she ever felt discriminated for being old. She had a positive response to that, she told from the 25 years she had been leaving here, younger generation have always respected her, and generous to her.

We also read chapter 4” Physical Health and Wellbeing”, leaving by herself it important to know about being self-sufficient, we cover chapter 5 “Mental Health”, “Finances and lifestyles”, chapter 9, statistically speaking, women’s financial needs are different from men’s. Women live longer than men, most often; they see themselves leaving in an income below average. Lastly, we read chapter 10 “Living Environment”, and “The Oldest-old and Caregiving”, on chapter 11.

One of my concerns with Ms. Brown was the fact that she was leaving by herself. What are some problems that the elderly may face living alone? I think the greater concern would be loneliness, anyone who has been married for a long time, and now faces widowhood, certainly will miss their mate. Other concerns are, not eating properly; vulnerability to strangers, unable to maintain a household, forgetting to take their medicine, unable to walk outside without help, and the list goes on.

As a caretaker at the South Richmond Adult facility, a couple of major challenges facing our facility include; the increased rules and regulations, the increasing burden of Documentation and Paperwork, understaffing and having enough sub-acute trained nurses and quality therapists; seeing that I often have ten to twenty residents because of the understaffing issue, and treating increasingly difficult patients with reduced reimbursements and insufficient funding.

Besides my children, two of my most significant accomplishments to date would have to include obtaining my CAN and working in this field for the past six years, and finally making the decision to attend college and obtain my Nursing Degree. A couple of my strengths as being a caretaker would include my communication skills, which I believe are great and benefit me in my everyday career. I enjoy speaking with patients nd families whenever possible. I even spend the day with some of my residents on my days off. I have come to believe that a close friendly relationship is very important with the families as well as the patients as they are coping with ageing of someone close and all the health issues that follow. Also, my organizational skills are very important to me as well as my fellow co-workers. Remaining organized and scheduled allows for a smoother day.

I have come to believe that my greatest weakness is finding it challenging on occasions to separate my feelings from my career. My views on ageing are that it can be a beautiful thing. If you take care of your body at a young age and eat healthy, when you become older it won’t affect you as much. With age comes wisdom, so once you become a certain age, you have done a lot in life and you have the knowledge and wisdom to pass on to younger people.

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