REFLECTION

Professional Perspectives in the Care of the Older Person

Professional Perspectives in the Care of the Older Person

Introduction

A nurse is a healthcare professional who, in collaboration with other members of a health care team, is responsible for treatment, security, and recovery of acutely or chronically ill individuals; health advancement and upkeep inside families, groups and populations; and, treatment of life-threatening emergencies in a broad variety of health care settings. Nurses present a broad range of clinical and non-clinical functions essential to the consignment of wellbeing care, and may also be engaged in health and nursing research nursing significances are the nursing-related penalties of something related to a disease, a medication, a procedure.

There is a huge contribution of nurses in handling old age people, the responsibility of nurses to contribute to knowledge in the health field and perhaps more important, but often least recognized the great need for nurses to acquire the essential knowledge for practice. On Age is the passage of the period to retirement. There is no real definition of the elderly, the person old is a human being become more vulnerable and more fragile, because of the aging, the elderly person loses his ability, whether physical or mental, physiological and pathological conditions. Not the health edge consequences, but the things which may happen which are up to the nurse to resolve, to work out what they are, you need to understand about the disease, medication or procedure, for example; a nursing implication of administering blood pressure medication is that you may make the patient hypertensive and cause dizziness etc. Nursing job which requires taking care of people belongs to the old age is a tough job and it also requires extra efforts and extensive care (Wiener, 2003, pp. 27).

Issues in Elderly Care

Regulatory bodies for nursing in the United Kingdom have recognized the particular issues in relation to nurses and older people. There is an obligation on all healthcare professionals to consider and be open to the possibility of elder abuse, particularly in the case of cognitive impairment. All older people need to be assessed using other objective and subjective assessment methods and both assessments should concur. Any assessment or review of an older person should be undertaken in private and any communication challenges should be addressed to allow confidentiality (Cooney, 2008, pp. 55).

Assessment involves the ability to discriminate between issues of age-disease- neglect and abuse. Particular risk factors and recent life events should be reviewed, such as a family member moving in or increased care-giving responsibilities for a family member (Cooney, 2008, pp. 55). There is a responsibility on nurses to act regardless of environment. An important issue for nurses is the active engagement in reflecting on the context and care of the older person and the system of care being delivered. On a macro-perspective, as a society, United Kingdom needs to actively combat ageism, the systematic, and stereotyping of older people. How we speak of and construct older people is important as this affects our attitudes ...