Case Study: Gerontology

Mrs. Jones is an 89 year-old woman who migrated to Australia from Germany 40 years ago. Since the passing of her husband two years ago, Amaile’s health has begun to slowly deteriorate obliging her to leave her active lifestyle.

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.

Mrs Ann Smith is a seventy nine year old woman and she has several problems regarding her health and well-being in her elderly age. Many policies and legislation ensure the safety and well-being of the elderly such as Mrs Smith. Legislation and policies safeguard the elderly including Mrs Smith to receive the fair treatment of care and to stop discrimination and exclusion. Discrimination and exclusion is still prevalent today and within contemporary society the ageing population is rising, discrimination and exclusion could increase if it is not appropriately tackled by contemporary society today. There are numerous theories of ageing, some theories are disengagement theory, and the activity theory and these theories have developed key concepts and the effects of ageing on individuals and contemporary society today.

Interviewing John gave me a better understanding with our older generation, and the struggles they faced throughout their lives. The purpose of this paper was to gain a better knowledge about our elder’s health, lifestyle, and many challenges they have encountered.

On Tuesday 06/27/2017, veteran Mr. Saenz walked very angrily in my office with his wife about 11:00 AM. I greeted them and offered to sit down; Mr. Saenz and Mrs. Saenz were very upset and asked me where they need to go as they have VA examination, they both said “nobody tells them anything; they have been sitting in waiting room”. They told me that the lady on the desk told them to come to me.

The Living Old program is about the United States of America population of people who are over 85 years old. This video was broken down into a six chapters. The first chapter was called, “Our Aging Society.” This chapter was about how the geriatric population is growing and changing our current society. In addition to the present changes, Doctor Audrey Chun commented on how people in the past died from pneumonia, flus, and other things such as infectious diseases. Whereas, in present time people are dying from chronic diseases such as hypertension, heart failure, strokes, diabetes and other things that require management over the years. This chapter also touched on how the current health care system is not set up to treat chronic diseases.

1. Identify and describe the specific issues DeMur encountered in the workplace. Do the actions of other workers at Treton represent discrimination and harassment? What elements of law are important for Treton to consider?

“Something always take a hold of me on this hill- pleads I should stay.” (page 3, paragraph 5) When you first hear someone speak like that, you would say they were older, right? That is just the image Eudora Welty captured in “A Worn Path.” In this essay, I will talk on how Eudora Welty captured the essence of an old, negro woman in Mississippi in the 1930s, but still made her mighty, yet fragile. Frail, yet strong. How she made Phoenix Jackson a strong, independent black woman.

Many aging Americans often struggle to pay for home care, assisted living and other forms of long term care. When choosing the right type of care much consideration and research should be given. In determining whether one must self-fund their care can be a process which can leave the door open for many unanswered questions. Questions like, what is the expected cost, will Medicare help to cover any cost, or can one use their property to pay the cost for long term care. Since elder care and senior care can be in a variety of forms, the biggest concern is who takes on the brunt of payments. According to Benjamin (2015), “99% of our services are a private pay product with some assistance for veterans; long-term care insurance does account for part of the remaining 1%, along with some waivers provided by Medicare. “Private Pay can be funded by savings and investments, long term care insurance or annuities, social security or other retirement benefits, Veterans’ benefits, and through the conversion of a life insurance policy into a Life Care Benefit Plan or Long Term Care Benefit Plan” (Orestis, 2013, para 1). Most anyone can pay or arrange their care cost, however cost is usually determined by ones need and where they live.

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.

One in six Canadians have a chronic disease, with these chronic diseases being especially prevalent in the elderly population, individuals 55 years of age or older. Elderly populations have four times the rate of chronic disease compared to the overall population (Government of Canada, 2017). In fact, population aging was stated as one of the three most prominent elemental determinants of chronic disease development, along with globalization and urbanization, by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2005. One major form of chronic disease is osteoporosis, with related expenditures totaling over $2.3 billion per year (Tarride et al., 2012), contributing to the ever-increasing health care costs in Canada. However, many chronic diseases such

As seen in this case study, TM was listed as a full code and no GOC conversation was had between the physicians and the patient until the day of his discharge to home. This led to an unnecessary swallowing study in which the patient needed to be uncomfortably scoped. Due to the lack of GOC conversation the patient also chose to go home with general nursing services instead of end-of-life (EOL) hospice support. In the inpatient medical oncology floors of a large teaching hospital like this one, most patients are covered by rotating interns and residents that are not comfortable having GOC conversations with patients and leave it up to the primary physician to come and discuss.

The interviewee definitely appears to be aging successfully. She is very active for a seventy-five year old. Each morning she eats breakfast followed by ten minutes of yoga. Next, she bikes to the pool and swims laps or does water aerobics. Other ways she enjoys exercise is through walks around the park or around the beach. She hasn’t taken dance classes in awhile, but would would be interested in taking a line dancing class next winter if she can find the time. In response to question 6, she believes she can control her health by a large extent by not letting stress get to her. She mentioned how illness can be the cause of stress, and how she has to really work on not worrying about things she has no control over, because it will just create unneeded stress.

In the case study of the 75 year old woman these are some of the questions that could be added in the assessment process. The relation to the fatigue I would ask more question to get a better understanding in clarifying the direction. Like how long does it lasts when it occurs? Can you rate the level of your fatigue on a scale of 0-10 ten being the worst? Is it accompanied with a type of activity? Have you had any lifestyle changes? It is a gradual or sudden onset? Do you have any sleep disorders i.e. dyspnea? Do you sleep flat or reclined? This helps pinpoint the fatigue from different types. The types of fatigue are tiredness, exercise, depression, stress, medically like anemia, heart disease, emphysema. (Wilson & Giddens 2009)

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