The purpose of this posting is to discuss ageing adults and gerontological nursing, why fewer nursing students are choosing gerontological nursing as a speciality, and what can be done to increase the interest in this area of nursing.
My definition of gerontological nursing is the nursing profession that refers to older adults. By collaborating with them and their families, gerontological nurses offer support to healthy ageing, improve and maximize functioning, and enhance the quality of ageing. It is obvious that there is world aspect of population ageing. The world society is growing older and existing longer (Osuji, 2014). Ageing is an imminent and unwaveringly progressive process that starts at birth and completes at the end of the life (Tabloski, 2014). Nurses are leading providers of care to the elderly population both in acute and community settings. As the result, gerontological nursing interventions are directed on a particular set of knowledge, focused on enabling the elderly to accomplish independence, advance their rehabilitation possibility, lessen disability, and implement supporting care till the end of
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Elderly are the largest clientele of health care system. (Cline, Manchester, & Tagliareni, 2012). As the population of older adults increase, the need to have more geriatric nurses and health care providers will increase as well. My first nursing experience with elderly patients was when I worked as a nursing assistant in a nursing home before I became a nurse. The working environment was not friendly, there was never enough help to take care of patients needs. Those were patients that were mostly bedridden and required a lot of help. It was very hard physical work. Perhaps this may be one of the reasons that current nursing students are opting for more acute