This posting is about the elderly and their reminiscence of their own life. Throughout the post, I will discuss some of the difficulties I have experienced in providing care for the elderly. Furthermore, I will describe my own thoughts and feelings about the required video and what changes I will include in my nursing practice after watching the video.
All living things age, it is an unavoidable process. It is associated with cognitive, emotional, and physical transformation (Sarma & Bhagawati, 2015). According to Sarma & Bhagawati (2015), there is an increase in the population of older adults worldwide. Very often they feel isolated and neglected from their own family and friends. As people get older they become more forgetful, many have dementia that made them loose their ability to comprehend the world around them. They live in their own reality and remembering the past may help boost their life satisfaction and decrease depression. Elderly tell the stories to younger generations, it is a tradition that has been around for a long time. By storytelling, older adults are able to connect to younger generations, and it helps the younger ones to understand the person that now cannot remember their own children. Reminiscence is remembering the past and bringing old memories back to life (Lindinger-Sternart, 2013).
The first encounter that I had with the elderly is with my grandparents. They lived on a farm and had seven children and fourteen grandchildren. As grandchildren, we were all close in age and we used to spend summers at their house. Those are some of the fondest memories that I have. They used to tell us stories about their past and about our parents when they were younger. I remember seeing their eyes lighting up every ti...
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...r past I will try to be there and listen. As I previously have stated, sometimes we are all they have, often our patients may not have any families or friends that come and visit them, so it is natural that they feel lonely.
In conclusion, as nurses we know part of our job is not only to take care of the physical needs of our patients, but of their psychological needs as well, and listening to them may help them feel less isolated and depressed.
Reference
Sarma, P., & Bhagawati, B. (2015). Geriatric care through lifelong learning: A humanistic approach. Middle East Journal of Age & Ageing, 12(3), 27-32.
Lindinger-Sternart, S. J. (2013). The life reflection and consequences of older adults ' relationships: An empirical study. Adultspan Journal, 12(2), 80-90.
Tabloski, P. A. (2014). Gerontological Nursing (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, Pearson Education.
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Touhy, T. A., & Jett, K. (2012). Toward healthy aging: Human needs & nursing response (8th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier/Mosby.
older adults. Journal of Nursing Education, 47(6), 269-271. Retrieved from CINAHL Plus with Full Text database.
Touhy, T.A., Freudenberger J.K., Ebersole, P., & Hess, P.A. (2012). Ebersole & Hess' toward healthy aging: human needs & nursing response. Toronto: Mosby Inc. Retrieved from http://evolve.elsevier.com/staticPages/i_index.html
Houde, S., & Melillo, K. (2009). Caring for an aging population. Journal Of Gerontological Nursing, 35(12), 9-13. doi:10.3928/00989134-20091103-04
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