3978NRS Aged Care Nursing & Journal of Nursing Management

A good number of theories have got advanced by different theorists. The philosophers' ideas are quite relevant to the ageism, nursing care, and the healthcare setting. The disengagement theory, which refers to the process that is unavoidable in which several of the relationships involving an older person and his/her societal members get eroded and those which continue to be inexistent get changed concerning quality (Stumpers, Cohen, Pooley, & Mander, 2015). The theory is advanced to claim that either the older person initiates the withdrawal of the relationship with the other society members or the community just deteriorates the relationship. The withdrawal can be partial or entirely withdrawn. The theory upholds that the aged person is less concerned about life, unlike that time he was a young adult.

The older person just views life as priceless and only wishes when shall his/her Lord take her/his life to rest. The theory argues that there is total stereotyping and discrimination of older people. For example, the caregivers, family members, and the healthcare providers do distance themselves from an older person and try as much as possible to create newer links with young adults in the society (Swift, Abrams, Drury, & Lamont, 2016). Such actions result to the loneliness, inferiority, senility, dementing and developing of negative feelings by the old person. Community members view the old people as burdens, disabled, sexless and rigid. The theory has been conflicted by some critics who argue that it fails to put into consideration of the larger of older people who do not withdraw from the society. The critics of the theory state that some older people do assist in decision making on certain community matters, educating the young people on the ways of life and culture, presiding over certain cultural practices such as rituals and succession rites.

Another theory put forward is the activity theory. The theory was advanced to show that still the older people have other roles to perform after retiring. An older person regardless of the discrimination and prejudice perspective by the younger people actively participates in the family roles such as acting as the head of the family or family advisor, active role in the community functions such as offering blessings at marriage occasions among many others (Hanson, 2014). The nursing care fraternity should not prioritize the working class in service delivery but should be aware of the active roles played by the retired older people.

Healthcare providers do assume that the aged have got no role to play in the society. Hence, they try to ignore and become hesitant in providing the necessary nursing care. In most instances, one realizes that at the health care setting wards for the aged are less technologically equipped since the medical management has a perception that only the younger and working people have a need to access technological equipment while in the wards (Sloane, et al., 2014). For us to maintain a positive sense for the aged people, new roles should get assigned to the elderly, and give theirs to the younger people.

Additionally, the neuroendocrine theory which was a proposal by Prof. Vladimir Dilman and the Ward Dean MD. The theory focuses and elaborates on the wearing away of the older person’s neuroendocrine system. The two argued that the system comprises of biochemical that control the release of the hormones from hormonal glands which get altered by the hypothalamus part of the brain (Mckenzie & Brown, 2014). Due to the older age, the theory argues that the hormonal secretion and control in system declines and the hormone's effectiveness get reduced due to the poor reception.

The theory further holds that due to the old age, the hypothalamus fails to offer effective regulation on the hormonal secretion and the older person’s receptors are less sensitive to the hormonal uptake. The theory tries to explain and show that the caregivers do discriminate the aged without putting into consideration of the biological processes involved (Ben-Harsh, et al., 2013). Most societal members and the nursing professionals perceive the aged as inactive and sexless not taking into account of the hormonal regulation and reception in the biological activity of the neuroendocrine activity of the older person.

The Australian Nurses Standards for practice have outlined principles that direct the nurses to offer and provide quality nursing care to all patients regardless of the age. The principles hold that the patient’s need should get catered for by the nurse on duty. The nursing professional should record information from the old patient, come up with an informed decision on the necessary care and how to offer it to client satisfaction (Kagan & Melendez-Torres, 2015). The Standards of Practice also reminds the nurse to keep the patient’s information in safe custody and confidential. The health care professional must follow the standards in the provision of nursing care to the older people despite the perception and stereotype developed towards the aged.

Most health care settings have developed mission statements that welcome everyone to seek medication and get quality services regardless of the age. Also, most nursing homes or centers have also welcoming missions or slogans that are encouraging the older people to seek refuge there for the satisfaction of their needs (Kydd & Flemming, 2015). Such principles outlined in the Australian Nurse Standards of Practice and the Mission Statements have created a conducive environment for the aged to seek and get the required nursing care.

There have been reports that some registered nurses engage in ageist behaviors which negatively impacts their relationships with the older patients. A registered nurse who engages ageist behavior perceives the older patient as of a less value and not worthy living unlike the positive the registered nurse has towards younger patients. Due to the ageist behavior, the registered nurse would view the older patient as naïve, confused, and dormant (Parsons, Macdonald, Hajek, & Moody, 2015).

Furthermore, the nurse’s negative perception would result into the endangering of the older patient’s life through prescribing drugs aimed at causing harm to the patient or his/her death approach. Also, due to the stereotype behavior, the nurse would offer inadequate and substandard nursing care service to the older patient. The nursing care service from the ageist nurse would be of poor quality since the nurse does not concentrate on the patients complains and undertakes no research to investigate the problems raised by the older patient. Finally, the registered nurse’s behavior would result in strained and poor relationships with the other healthcare team members due to the wrong perception.

The following strategies are effective in the address for ageism; policy level is working and the human rights law enactment by WHO. At the health care environment, policies should get formulated and implemented which shall regulate the behavior of nursing professionals and the quality of care they provide to both the older and younger patients (Hurtado, Berkman, Buxton, & Okechukwu, 2016). Also, the right to better medical and nursing care services to all people should be followed strictly as per the requirement of the WHO enactment. Through these two strategies, the health care providers would be forced to act and offer nursing care service to all patients without partiality regardless of the age, thus, leading to the address and end of ageism.

In conclusion, ageism results to the adverse implications in the older patients. The negative definitions given to the older patients makes them feel as unworthy and do not deserve living anymore, brings seclusion from the society activities and renders them inferior. Such negative definitions for older people include; being inactive, resistive to change and not ready to learn new things, economically burdens, disabled and sexless. Furthermore, the definitions result to the feeling of loneliness, valueless and poor living creatures. Some principles have been proposed or advanced to act in defense of the older person such as the neuroendocrine theory which argues that the insensitive or inactive nature is a biological factor which cannot get avoided by anyone in the aging process. Other approaches include the disengagement theory and the activity theory. The separation theory holds that in some instances the old people withdrawal from the society involvement relationships. On the other hand, the theory claims that in most cases it is the younger members of the community that withdraws from the relationship between them and the aged people. This occurs because the aged are too dependent, inactive and do not add any value in the society progress. The ageist behavior of a registered nurse is detrimental to the relationships between the nurse, older patient and other health care team. Also, the ageist behavior results to the provision of poor quality nursing services which may have dire consequences on the older patient’s health. Work level policies and the right to quality nursing care strategies should be implemented to counter ageism.

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