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The ethical implications of age discrimination
The ethical implications of age discrimination
Age discrimination in the workplace brief introduction
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Ageism and the Negative Stereotypes About Aging Today’s society highly values attractiveness, energy, and independence. Therefore, old age tends to be devalued in many ways based on stereotypes portrayed by the media and personal biases. Regardless, aging is a natural process that happens to everyone in society. With that said, this becomes a challenge for young nurses. What does one think of when hearing of a 87 year old patient? Does one automatically think the patient will be confused, agitated, very frail, very ill, or dependent? Many do. This is where nurses need to become more aware and change their views. Working in a hospital myself, I tend to assume the same. I also hear a lot of people who are surprised when they discover their patient …show more content…
This decline is not related to acute illnesses but to the adverse effects of modern therapy and current hospital practices, which are designed for younger people.” (Huang, Larente, Morais, 2011)
Why Is the Health of Older Adults Important? The goal of the Healthy People 2020 initiative is to “improve the health, function, and quality of life of older adults.” (Healthy People, 2015) Regardless of age, everyone is a unique individual, with the same range of values, gifts and flaws as any other person. Young nurses need to help aging people keep their autonomy as long as possible by not doing things for them that they can do for themselves. As nurses, our ultimate goal should be to expand training and research opportunities in this area and eliminate ageism in all facets. “In the past institutional settings such as hospitals and nursing centers often treated older adults as objects rather than independent, dignified people. The time has come for nurses to recognize and address ageism by questioning prevailing negative attitudes and stereotypes and reinforcing the realities of aging as they care for older adults in all care settings.” (Korem, 2013, p.
Touhy, T. A., & Jett, K. (2012). Toward healthy aging: Human needs & nursing response (8th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier/Mosby.
The most impactful class was Holistic Care of the Older Adult, with the interview of the older adult and analyzation of their life (McLean, 2016). I learned that our older population allowed me to dig deeper into my heart to learn and understand and appreciate the beauty of life itself. When I care for adult population, I now practice with a different attitude and have found that listening, learning, and understanding each population is beneficial to my practice, how I care for each individual patient, and to their overall well-being spiritually and culturally. However, as a pediatric nurse, I believe that applying my new knowledge into holistically caring for the families is the difference between basic nursing care and striving to provide excellent care. Nursing Research, has allowed me to delve deeper into complex evidence-based and peer reviewed articles. I learned to understanding the different types of articles, validity, sampling, and statistical information while using concrete thinking of complex issues (Cauble, 2017). I have a deeper thought process, understand complex concepts, and have the desire to provide my patient of any age, the best care possible by using evidence-based
Touhy, T. A., Jett, K. F., Boscart, V., & McCleary, L. (october 2011). Ebersole and Hess Gerontological Nursing and Healthy Aging (1st canadian edition ed.). Retrieved from
Taking care of dementia patient one should have a lot of patience as in the story the author says to herself, “why I have forgo my own lunch to try and feed this woman” ( ). The author has to wait for Miss Julianne to eat her lunch first before she could go and eat her own meal. Nurses have to be very cooperative, well behavior, and caretaker. You should show empathy to your patient instead of showing sympathy like the author was concerned about Miss Julianne, and the assistant nurse tells Miss Julianne that the author “ wants to know, if you’re okay. Honey” and should be firm in your decision by using critical thinking. You should communicate with your patient and should have convincing power. The changes that I have faced are before I used to think, its easy to treat older adults but its one of the most challenging job. My mindset is completely changed and I am preparing myself how to deal with tough
“A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless, are the true gold mines of a culture.” –Abraham Joshua Heschel. I decided to do my senior project on becoming a certified nursing assistant because I believe CNA’s go beyond their limits for their patients. This is in honor of all CNA’s who work hard to care for the sick and elderly.
Houde, S., & Melillo, K. (2009). Caring for an aging population. Journal Of Gerontological Nursing, 35(12), 9-13. doi:10.3928/00989134-20091103-04
To deal with the issue of an aging population, an awareness campaign about the health issues that commonly affect aged people should be run by the government and non-governmental agencies. In addition, awareness should be created among the young to accommodate the elderly; at home as well as at work places...
Darby, S. Marr, J. Crump, A Scurfield, M (1999) Older People, Nursing & Mental Health. Oxford: Buterworth-Heinemann.
Stereotypes affect the day to day living of the elderly, whether it is through job attainment and sustainability, access and use of healthcare, and overall personal autonomy. Due to the current aging population the government of Canada has eliminated the mandatory retirement age and is looking to raise the retirement age (Minichiello, Browne, & Kendig, 2000), from 65 to at least 70, to ensure financial stability for all in the long term (Novac et al., 2014). From the elimination of a mandatory retirement age the older workers have been subject to experience discrimination and stereotypes due to the ability to work for longer periods. Currently for every five working age people (15yrs-64yrs) there is one aged worker (65+yrs) and it is predicted that by 2050 one in less than three (estimated 2.5) will be an aged worker (Government of Canada, 2012). Positive stereotypes include a great knowledge base and the ability to perform certain tasks through experience (Greenlees, Webb, Hall, & Manley, 2007). Negative stereotypes include being frail and in poor physical shape to perform laborious tasks leading to a lack of produ...
Older adults are a very knowledgeable population and have had a lot of life experiences. As people age, things start to change physically, mentally, and socially. It’s important to understand the process of aging, so that older adults can be taken care of properly. I interviewed P.R. who is a 71-year-old male that lives alone in his home. P.R. is a retired coal miner, and is currently living off his social security and savings. He lives close to both his daughter and son, who frequently help him out with things that are needed. P.R. was able to give me a lot of insight about specific challenges that he has experienced in his life that is associated with aging. I will be discussing challenges that P.R experienced physically, mentally,
Miller, Carol A. (2012). Nursing for Wellness in Older Adults. (sixth edition). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Attitudes are the foundation of quality of care for older adults. Among health care professionals, discrimination and stereotypical behaviors are very prevalent, even though more often than not these individuals do not realize their actions are ageist. “Ageism hinders people from seeing the potential of aging, anticipation their own aging, and being responsive to the needs of older people” (McGuire, Klein & Shu-Li, 2008, p. 12). Attitudes are directly correlated with how individuals age and whether individuals stay health and live longer (McGuire, Klein & Shu-Li, 2008, p. 12). The care that older adults receive from healthcare professionals is directly influenced by that provider’s attitude about growing older. All too often, health care providers rely on a patient’s chronological age rather than their functional age when determining their needs and what interventions are prescribed. Another issue lies in providers viewing the complaints of older patients as a part of “normal aging”, therefore potentially missing life-threatening problems that may have been easily resolved. “Age is only appropriate in health treatment as a secondary factor in making medical decisions, and it should not be used as a stand-alone factor” (Nolan, 2011, p. 334).
Miller, C. A. (2009). Nursing for wellness in older adults: Theory and practice (5th ed.). Cleveland, Ohio: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Kick, Ella. "Overview: Health Care and the Aging Population: What Are Today's Challenges?" The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing. N.p., n.d. Web.
According to DeBrew, author of “Can being ageist harm your older adult patients?” stereotypes and discrimination are evident in various aspects of patient care. “Ageism [is] defined as stereotyping or discrimination aimed at older adults and a lack of knowledge about normal changes of aging and presentation of illness in older adults (. . .)” (DeBrew, 2015). DeBrew (2015) states, “research findings suggest that ageism is common in healthcare” (DeBrew, 2015). Ageism is not only an issue in the healthcare setting, but also among older adults as well as their families. When ageism is present in the healthcare setting it poses