Introduction
In human anatomy, the functions of the body change with aging. The emotional state and the mental state of these patients also change as aging occurs. Some of these elderly patients may act like a child, some may be very irritable to accept the care given to them, and some may choose their caregivers. These are just some challenges that a nurse would be facing in the field of Geriatric Nursing. Children, adults, and elderly people should receive different assessments, planning, delivering, and evaluating nursing care. Taking care of the elderly would require specific expertise. Some nurses will even have to undergo training for the said area of specialization to get a certificate.
What is so important and different about caring for the elder? Anatomical and physiological changes occur as a person grows older. The way the body responds to the disease, the treatment, and even the recovery period changes, as well as one, grows old. Thus nurses and clinicians should always consider the age of the patient in delivering care. One should even consider the emotional state of the elderly who would receive the care.
Geriatric nursing
Nursing the elderly poses a great challenge to the nurses. They meet different attitudes of the elderly patients. A nurse must have enough patience in caring for these patients to prevent mishandling. Say for example, in BBC News last December 2006 they wrote that a nurse was given a 10-year suspension for assaulting and poisoning the elderly patients that were under her care.
A nurse’s attitude should as well be considered before assigning her to geriatric patients because this would count on how the nurse could give quality nursing care to these types of patients. As elderly patients need understanding, patience and genuine care, the nurse that would be assigned to them should be able to give this kind of care to the elderly patient.
Let us then take a closer look at how the elderly patients were treated to see clearly why we need nurses who are qualified to give quality nursing care to the elderly patients.
In one report, nurses were found to beat elderly mentally ill patients; they tied them to a makeshift harness and feed them while on the lavatory. This was known because of the report of the student nurses that abuse happened onward 21 of the Garlands Hospital, Carlisle, Cumbria (Bunyan, 2000).
In another case, a nursing aide at a certain Nursing home was accused of abusing patients over 14 months beating a 78-year-old man and handling roughly a 105-year-old woman until she screamed for her life (Ordoñez, et.al. 2004).
With these kinds of reports, the government should take action to answer the needs of the maltreated elderly patients. Elderly patients who are admitted to the hospital or nursing homes should be given quality care. Although elderly patients may be hard to handle as they are having emotional problems and they also have degenerative diseases, they ought to have nurses who can show patience, enough to give quality care.
In answer to these problems, there are suggestions from the New York State Nurses Association for a registered professional nurse. These are the following:
One is to promote an establishment of continuing education programs at the community level that gives focus on preparing the professional nurses to better identify and treat elders who are victims of maltreatment. Another is continuous monitoring of elderly abuse through examining the signs and symptoms. Another is to initiate actions if the patient is a victim of abuse. There should be school-based programs to study and research in gerontological nursing. Be an advocate for mandatory reporting of elderly abuse in all elderly caring settings (Elder Abuse, 2004).
A very important characteristic of nursing taking care of elderly patients is patience. Working with older persons presents a challenge and people are living longer and dealing with a disease that is chronic and sometimes debilitating. Nurses need to help these elderly people by providing culturally quality care. Geriatric care may be challenging but some nurses claim it to be rewarding. It may not be a glamorous field of practice and very challenging but very rewarding (Fagin, et.al. 2005).
Conclusion
Student nurses should then be conditioned and must be given in-depth information about geriatric nursing and the challenges that it brings. Although they will pass this field as they would have their practice, they should be ready when faced with the patients.
Geriatric patients may be hard to handle as they would have different needs and have different characteristics. This is what the nurses should face being able to give the quality care that the elderly person needs.
As geriatric nurses face a great challenge in the field, they must also see to it that a quality kind of care should be given to these patients because they are the ones who need genuine care the most.
References
Bunyan, N. (2000). Nurses tied Elderly Patients to Harness. Web.
Council on Nursing Practice. (2004). Elder Abuse, Neglect and Maltreatment. Web.
Ordoñez, F. and Ellement, J. (2004). Nursing home aide accused of abuse. Web.
BBC News. (2006). Nurse ‘Poisoned Elderly Patient’. Web.
Fagin, C. and Franklin, p. (2005). Why choose Geriatric Nursing?. Web.
Mezey, M. and Ebersole, P. THE FUTURE OF GERIATRIC MEDICINE: A NATIONAL CRISIS LOOMS : Geriatric Nurses Vital To Care. Web.