Age Is Just a Number

Aging is a summary term of complex biological processes that occurs over the course of life. As an individual age’s, they experience a cognitive, functional and social decline that affects their activities of daily living and general health. As a result of these changes, the older population becomes more susceptible to a variety of illnesses. However, nurses can lessen the severity of these aging related illnesses by teaching and providing the best care for their clients in order to decrease the number of elders that suffer from these diseases through a variety of interventions and strategies. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the nurses’ role in promoting healthy aging in the older population, by addressing a significant issue that impairs the health of many older Canadian adults.

Aging is very complex and highly individualized process which begins at conception and end with death. Variables such as physical or cognitive impairments, socioeconomic aspect, cultural values, and beliefs make an aging process unique to each individual. I interviewed an elderly woman using a set of guided questionnaires on the topic to further explore her aging experience. For the purpose of this assignment, I will refer to the client interviewed as a D.L., a changed name for a reason of privacy and confidentiality. During the interview, we explored a D.L. strategy to stay healthy, significant accomplishments of her life, hobbies and activities, retirement, and finally the goals for the future.

Successful aging is a complicated and multifaceted concept that varies contextually among individuals, disciplines, and even time. Gerontologists have traditionally considered a person to have aged successfully upon having reached old age with their physical health, mental well-being and spirit still intact. Ultimately, successful aging is a matter of personal perspective, largely influenced by an individual 's values and experiences. Even those within America 's elderly population hold conflicting perspectives on what it means to have aged successfully. A qualitative study published by Reichstadt and Sengupta titled Older Adults ' Perspectives on Successful Aging, concluded that “older adults viewed successful aging as a balance between self-acceptance and self-contentedness on one hand and engagement with life and self-growth in later life on the other” (Reichstadt, "Older Adults ' Perspectives on Successful Aging: Qualitative Interviews", pp. 567-575.)

Role theory is one of the earliest theories to address how people adjust as they go through the aging process (Hooyman & Kiyak, 2005/2011). Roles refer to the social behaviors and transitions an individual experiences throughout the life course, such as child, wife, caretaker and businesswoman (Hooyman & Kiyak, 2005/2011; (Hutchison, 2008). The individual is defined through the adopted role, which is normally associated either with the different stages of life and/or with different ages. In addition, society and culture typically assign roles usually referred to as “age norms” which

Aging and being old was dominated by negative characteristics and conditions such as illness, depression, and isolation for a long time (Eibach, Mock, & Courtney, 2010). At first glance the terms “success” and “aging” seem to be in conflict to each other. When asking people about aging, their answers have many facets that are also found in psychological definitions: successful aging is seen as health, maturity and personal growth, self-acceptance, happiness, generativity, coping, and acceptance of age-related limitations. In the psychological sense successful aging is also often seen as the absence of age-associated characteristics (Strawbridge, Wallhagen, & Cohen, 2002). It seems that successful aging means is not aging.

The humanity of aging is a concept sometimes hard to grasp. Understanding why we are

According to Statistics Canada, aging population has steadily increased since the mid-1960. The age of 65 and older comprised 15.7% of the country’s population. Promoting health in these aging population is very crucial to minimise the severity of health complications that might occur in the long run. Gerontological Nursing involves the care of aging people and emphasize the promotion of the highest possible quality of life and wellness throughout the lifespan (Eliopoulos, c2014 p73). Aging people need Gerontological Nurses who are knowledgeable and willing to promote health and optimum quality of life with the consideration of their core needs such as physiological balance, connection and gratification (Eliopoulos, c2014 p78).

The aging of society has not significantly changed our perceptions of the elderly. Ageism is widespread in Western societies (Dionigi, et al, 2011). Older adults are seen as boring, grumpy irritable, weak, debilitated, mournful, and most significantly cognitively. These stereotypes which are negative can be allowed by the aged themselves negative self-stereotyping (Dionigi, et al, 2011) and are as well found among specialized caregivers (e.g., Cowan, Fitzpatrick, Roberts, & While,2004). The image in relation to which older adults are more ineffectual than younger adults is predominantly dominant. Nevertheless, in a variety of domains, older adults are inclined to have analogous performances and at times even do better than younger

Reminiscing to 2010, when I was faced with my grandmother 's illness during the adolescent years in my life I knew that I had a passion to care for the elderly (aging) population. From this passion, it ignited a fire so strong that I pursue my certified nursing assistant certification to gain a better understanding of working with the elderly population. By doing so, it has been a great benefit to my life; aging is an inevitable experience that we all will go through during our life. It is important to ensure that our elderly individuals are still able to enjoy the best quality of life after retirement. However, as we age, there will be a lifestyle change that the aging population must encounter.

The age markers are slowly changing and so is the concept of retirement. The modern aged community is unwilling to declare themselves as retired. One of the respondents made a statement that he wishes to work as long as he could do. A self declared retirement will make one detached from activities thus speeding up the ageing process. An earlier retirement will most probably make the individual feel old soon and this emotional drift will have a dramatic influence on his physical as well as mental and emotional health as well.

Knowing and having an understanding of what ageing stands for, remains an important step, growing-up or growing older and ageism are theories about older individuals. Ageism includes preconceptions that elderly are categorized for their age and perceived as weak, and incapable of performing tasks and needy of others (Quadagno, 2014). Another view about elderly individuals is the way they are looked down on by the younger society, i.e. elderly are not as intelligent as their younger competitive working force. People fear what they do not know and do not understand. Age transpires as something that must be lived through in order to understand what ageing means; looking back on one’s life and seeing accomplishments made,

1) The article from The Gerontologist supports the activity theory of aging. This states that as people age, it is very important for them to be engaged in various activities and social roles. As described in the lecture, studies have shown that those who stay involved have less signs of depression and have a lesser decline in mental health. In addition, they are considered more competent than others in their age group by the general population since they are actively participating in society. The research described in the article proved that those who had moderate or high participation in activities such as working, volunteering, and caregiving had a better psychological well-being. It is not necessarily just taking part in these, but the level in which one does so is also crucial. It appears that moderate participation is the best way to a better psychological well-being, as one does not want to be overworked, but should still be involved.

Due to my four years’ experience working as a Nursing Assistant in a nursing home, inpatient rehabilitation facility and acute care facility, I considered myself to be well knowledgeable about the geriatric population. I was in for quite a surprise, the Older Adult Review allowed me to apply my learning from the textbooks and understand aging from a personal perspective. I have always feared to get older and ultimately dying but Mary helped ease my worries by commenting that although aging is hard and unexpected, one must always remain positive and ultimately thank God for all he has given us (Mary, personal communication, December 2, 2017). Being that Mary was a frequent patient under my care, I also assumed I knew very much about her, however, it was interesting to

Although we all become old someday, how many people are aware of what are normal or abnormal processes of aging? It is very important for us as nursing students to learn about them in order to take care of older adults. As a part of geriatric clinical, I had an opportunity to interview one of the residents at the Continuing Care Center.

Aging, in general, refers to changes that take place in the organism throughout the life span- good, bad, and neutral (Hooyman and Kiyak, 6). Usually, someone between the age sixty-five and older is referred to as “old person.” During my orientation, pre-internship interview and internship hours I have been able to make a lot of connections between this course and my observations. I have been able to walk the facility and freely speak with some of the residents. I was able to meet the oldest resident of the facility. She was 102 years old. There are also some young residents in the facility who are in their 40’s. The age range