Gerontological Nursing

Discussion Board WK 1 Gerontologic Explosion

Every twenty-four hours, there are ten thousand people in the United States turning sixty-five years old. Presently, there are forty-eight million people that are 65 or older, but in the year 2030 that number will grow to an alarming seventy-three million. Additionally, by the year 2035 those that are 85 and older will go from the current six million to twelve million Americans. As the number of older Americans increases, so does the need for competent and compassionate gerontological nurses (Cleave et al., 2016). This post will focus on what the term gerontological nurse means, the reasons why few nursing students choose gerontological nursing as a specialty, and what is needed to increase interest

First of all, there are the misconceptions about aging that the majority of older people are sick and health promotion is futile since the older adult has no future (Tabloski, 2014). The care given to the older adult is lacking in quality due to the negative feelings many nurses have with patients of this age. One negative viewpoint is that nurses think this is not a highly skilled specialty and that there is a lack of career advancement. Another view is that older people are more irritable, touchy, and are not pleasant. Finally, the working environment is not adequate, often depressing, and is not favorable in recruiting or keeping nurses (Kydd, Touhy, Newman, Fagerberg, & Engstrom,

One method is to incorporate gerontology into the educational programs for nurses. These programs must provide teachers in the classroom and clinical setting that are gerontological experts that promote holistic individualized care for the older adult. In addition to, these teachers have profound impact on molding the attitudes and influencing a positive viewpoint for nursing students regarding the older adult and choosing gerontological specialty as a career. Also, nursing students need to be able to work with the older adults that are healthy and ill in a variety of quality settings. Furthermore, inexperienced nurses need to be paired with experienced gerontological nurses to learn that this is a highly skilled specialty that is challenging and stimulating. Finally, in the clinical setting, there needs to be created more positions with higher pay for gerontological nurses with more resources and improved working environment (Kydd et al.,