The Role Of Ageism In Nursing Care

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treatment plans, and are forced to give up autonomy (Williams 2012). Ageism is often a part of the psychology of older patients themselves and their families, and can have untoward effects on medical outcomes by underestimating the capacities of older people. Negative elder bias continues to be socially acceptable and bears impact on the ways in which younger people interact with them. Different tones of voice, speaking slower or more loudly are methods often employed when younger people communicate with older adults. This behavior can be seen as demeaning, and the elderly see the message it sends as one of devaluing them (Williams 2012). Improper attitudes by healthcare staff toward the elderly can lead older patients to become complicit with their physicians, believing that the stereotypical symptoms of aging, such as cognitive decline, functional impairment, pain and others are to be expected to accompany all people into old age (Williams 2012). This shared, semiotic attitude of fatalism can prevent physicians and older patients alike from seeing the elderly as capable and productive managers of their own lives. …show more content…

There is a critical shortage of geriatricians in the United States, and only ten percent of United States medical schools require any coursework in geriatrics. Medical students simply are not trained to deal with the multiple chronic health issues that older patients experience. This, along with the societal view of aging has the end result of an interaction between health disparities, justice and cultural interpretation of disease. It is a problem to be unraveled so that older patients no longer experience the current disparities in healthcare (Warshaw