The importance of the field of geriatric Nursing, relies on the ability of the college educator to encourage student interest in the care of the aged patient. Educational resources are readily available and can be found in professional journals, textbooks, audio-visuals, face to face seminars, webinars and approved college curriculums.

Educators depend on various teaching strategies and learning modules that benefit the learner. One particular teaching strategy has the student write a narrative that helps her explore the experiences and decisions that first led her to Nursing as a chosen profession.

For the aging individual, exercise is associated with an array of benefits that support a longer life span. A recent study supports its connection to protecting and enhancing brain function. In 2016 scientists released their findings of a controlled trial study that investigated the effects of resistance training on cognitive function in older adults.

Resistance training, also called strength training, is exercise that employs weights, machines, bands or other devices that work key muscle groups. The researchers wanted to determine whether cognitive improvement occurred as a result of either increased aerobic capacity or increased muscle strengthening.

The emergence of a population group identified as the well elderly is the result of social and demographic progress in the industrial world. More elderly people are living longer and poverty, frailty and dependence are not necessarily the common characteristics attributed to most old people.

The future portends a healthier well elderly population who are better educated and physically as well as emotionally prepared. Society has, at present, begun utilizing their capabilities for the foreseeable future, thus guaranteeing a potentially rich human resource.

A classic study by the researchers Lowenthal and Haven, demonstrated the importance of a caring relationship as a buffer against “age linked social losses”. The maintenance of a stable intimate relationship was more closely associated with good mental health and high morale than a high level of activity or elevated role status.

In other words, one appears to be able to manage stresses if relationships are close and sustaining, and if they are not, prestige and keeping busy may not always prevent depression.

The early days after admission to a skilled nursing facility are often critical to the newcomer. The anxiety surrounding the older person’s separation from his home, personal possessions and the dread of what may await him, may eventually intensify.

It is this time when a facility should be expressing their concern for this individual’s state of mind and how they plan to deal with it. Without a well thought out care plan there can be an unintentional disruption to the newcomer’s previous life that may leave him no opportunity of moving forward and settling into a new environment.

Grandparenthood has multiple meanings for the person, depending in part on age at the initial time of grandparenthood, and the number and accomplishments of the grandchildren are probably a source of status. The stage of grandparenthood may come to middle-aged persons depending on the age of their own childbearing and age of their children’s childbearing. The relatively young grandparent may either like and accept or resist the role and may not like the connection of age and being a grandparent.

Grandparents are often happy with their role in that they can enjoy the young person and enter into a playful, informal, companionable and confiding relationship. The grandchild is seen as a source of leisure activity, someone for whom to purchase items that are also enjoyable to the grandparent.
Grandchildren have a special tie to grandparents. The research indicates that even when there was a divorce in the family, adult children from divorced families continued their relationships with grandparents.

Travel agencies try to persuade us that romance flourishes in the right setting. Advertisements barrage us with products that promise to make us sexy, glittering, powerful, desirable.

Although these messages are biased and superficial, they do touch upon the truth. There are circumstances that quicken our heartbeat and sharpen our appreciation for sensual possibilities. We feel good and want to share the feeling. We look good to each other and something very pleasant might well happen.

The role of the middle-aged offspring in caring for the elderly parent has been often described in social science research and popular magazines. Even as elders are being cared for, they are a source of support – emotionally, socially and financially – by providing living arrangements for the adult child who may be the caregiver.

The caregiver in an elderly couple is most frequently the wife, as women live longer than men and are usually younger than their spouses. If the woman is impaired, the husband will often become caregiver.

John is an independent, proud-eighty-year-old man who had nursed his late wife through her long bout with advanced Alzheimer’s disease and kept her at home until the very end. When friends and family wondered how he did it, given his limited mobility due to crippling arthritis, he would say, “I would have it no other way.”

Not only did he insist on doing his own shopping and cooking, he also shopped for neighbors in his apartment building, whom he characterized as the “old folks.” But when John had a stroke which paralyzed his left side, there was no way he could return home from the hospital. John and his three children were told by a hospital representative that they had a week to find a skilled nursing facility for him.

The emergence of a population group identified as the well elderly is the result of social and demographic progress in the industrial world. More elderly people are living longer and poverty, frailty, and dependence are not necessarily the com­mon characteristics attributed to most old people.

The future portends a healthier well elderly population who are better educated and physically as well as emotionally prepared. Society has, at present, begun utilizing their capabilities for the foreseeable future, thus guaranteeing a potentially rich human resource.

The need for tactile stimulation or touch, continues throughout our lives. Older adults may experience less touch because they have fewer contacts in their immediate environment, compared to the younger person.

As the senses of sight and sound decrease, touch becomes an increasingly important means of communicating. Touch then becomes a vital vehicle for expressing emotions and a way to make meaningful contact with others.

Virtually everyone remains capable of learning throughout their lives. There is no known age at which the elderly lose their ability to learn new things although due to illness and other medical issues, many can and do experience increased difficulties in learning.

It may appear as if the elderly have failed to grasp any new ideas. This is not because they have been unable to learn, but because they may choose not to risk making mistakes and looking foolish – a caution which the old share with younger people.

We often mistake an old person’s quiet withdrawal and lack of complaint as philosophic acceptance when, in fact, she is putting her best possible face on a bitterly disappointing, humiliating or frightening situation.

Either assumption, that it is normal to be unhappy or that old people are somehow happy about being unhappy, obstructs our view of the person’s true state of mind. Signs of distress deserve attention in old age as much as at any point in the lifespan.

“Professional education is acquired through the learning experience offered with courses preparing the student for the role of leader and teacher, and that can be implemented at a level of competency.” Eleanor C. Lambertsen, RN, Ed.D

Nurses play a critical role in caring for the sick and frail older adult, and in promoting healthy aging. Yet not only is there a general shortage of nurses in the United States, there are even fewer nurses who have specialized in geriatric skills. Of the 2.5 million registered nurses in the U.S., less than 15,000 are certified in geriatrics. And of the 111,000 advanced practice nurses, only 3,500 are geriatric nurse practitioners and/or clinical specialists.

We must realize that the comfort and well-being of an afflicted person can be improved even when a progressive disease process does exist. Environments can be adapted to allow for a measure of independence together with safety.

Instead of isolation, the person with a brain disease can be given the opportunity of continued social contact in a warm and friendly setting. I have personally seen women diagnosed with dementia, work confidently and competently in a kitchen provided for their use.

Society has an alternative method of classifying people by age. The distinctions are based on a person’s life situation, especially the place held in society, rather than on number of years since birth. Sociologists and anthropologists sometimes refer to this as an age-grading approach. It has been the most important basis of age distinction in many societies, and continues as a supplementary approach in industrialized nations today.

A simple age-grading approach divides the population into the young, the grown up, and the aged.

When a dying person senses that he is being abandoned and that others no longer feel he is worth their time and effort, he is likely to show very understandable mental and emotional reactions. He becomes demanding and agitated or more depressed. He thinks and talks in ways that may come across as peculiar to others.

For whenever patterns of communication deteriorate, it becomes increasingly difficult for an isolated person to speak logically. Unfortunately, reactions of this type often provoke responses that compound misery. Depressed because he feels abandoned, the terminally ill person may stop eating. Sensitive caregivers may recognize the psychosocial dynamics involved and increase their efforts to provide a sense of affection and security. Less sensitive people, however, may immediately resort to forced feeding through intravenous needles or gastrointestinal tubes. Or, they may decide the person is ready to die and let him go.

The following is a quote by the researcher, M. Schwab: “These early morning hours are terribly lonely…that’s when I have such a longing for someone who loves me to be there just to touch and hold me…and to talk to.”

Touch is the most important and neglected of our senses. An individual can survive without one or more of the other senses, but one cannot survive and live in any degree of comfort without the physical and emotional sense that touch is capable of offering.

Western clinicians are beginning to embrace Eastern healing modalities more than ever, especially in regard to patients with unrelieved pain. According to Maureen Foye, an RN, employed at the in-patient pain management program at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, “Many people don’t understand the role that Eastern healing can play in the management of pain.” Foye began working with patients in severe pain after being exposed to the principles of therapeutic touch. She has now come full circle by instructing other practitioners in the value of these principles with plans to conduct further research into the clinical effectiveness of energy healing and therapeutic touch associated with the field of pain management.

Many patients with chronic pain tend to isolate themselves. A major focus of the program is to therefore, create community among her patients.

Ageism and Aging are stereotyping and discriminating against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. The term was coined in 1971 by Robert Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, and patterned on sexism and racism. Butler defined “ageism” as a combination of three connected elements. They are prejudicial attitudes toward older people, old age, and the aging process. There are also other discriminatory practices against older people, such as institutional practices and policies that perpetuate stereotypes about older people.

Contrary to common and more obvious forms of stereotyping such as racism and sexism, ageism is more resistant to change. For instance, if a child believes in an ageist idea against the elderly with few people correcting him, then as a result, he will continue to grow into an adult believing in ageist ideas. In other words, ageism can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.