Promoting Healthy Aging Assignment

Running head: PROMOTING HEALTHY AGEING
Promoting Healthy Ageing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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PROMOTING HEALTHY AGEING
According to Bousquet et al. (2015), health is a multi-dimensional concept that deals
with both the physical and mental health of the person. The concept of active and healthy
ageing was first proposed by World Health Organisation towards the process of optimizing
the opportunities of health and thereby enhancing the quality of life of the people as they age.
According to WHO (2012), the concept of healthy ageing signifies the process of developing
and maintaining the standard functional ability that facilitates well-being in the later stages of
life. The population in Australia is ageing fast and this associated with the increase in the cost
of the medical care and other care giving process to the older group of population Morgan et
al. (2012). The following essay aims to analyse the process of interview conduction with an
person more than 50 years of age along with a detailed examination of the health issues
creating barriers towards the process of healthy ageing.
Consider the patient situation
The interview was conducted with a 55 year old female (Mrs. X: hypothetical) who
lives with her son and is suffering from depression. I have chosen her home for the
conduction of interview and not her clinic. The reason behind this is, according to Sivell et al.
(2015), conducting interview under a comfortable and previously known set-up of the
interview helps in gaining accurate and authentic response moreover, and it also helps to
decrease the stress factor and anxiety among the older group of people. I have also
conducted the interview in the presence of her son. According Doody, Slevin and Taggart
(2013), conducting interview of an older people under the presence of a family members help
to gather exact information.
I conducted the interview in the living area of the house as selected by my client who
preferred sit over the sofa during the entire interview process as she said it is the most
favourite place in her room. The main techniques used for data collection is recording her

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entire interview transcript in a recorder along with writing done some crucial quotes which I
felt important for analysing the main health issues. I also took consent from Mrs. X before
initiation of the interview via stating the purpose of the interview along with other details like
her identity will be kept confidential and she is allowed to leave the process of interview at
any point of time (Kleinpell et al., 2014).
Collection of cues and information
My overall experience of conducting the interview was very interactive that also
provided me learning experience in dealing with the older group of patients’ population.
However, initially, she was taking time to respond to my questions or rather was not open to
me. But my friendly gestures helped her to share her comfort zone with me. The main areas
which are given profuse importance while conducting the interview include active listening,
sympathizing with the client’s condition along with the maintenance of non-verbal
communication like posture, eye contact and facial expression so that the interviewee may
feel that interviewer is listening to each and every words articulated by her (Doody, Slevin &
Taggart, 2013). Moreover, taking her age into consideration, at times she was speaking so
sofetely that it was becoming difficult for me to understand her words but I did not asked her
to repeat her sentence as it might affect her autonomy. I rather tried to listen to her each and
every word attentively along with recording her speech and then trying to comprehend each
and every sentence in details.
Process information
The main factors which were analysed while conducting the interview includes Mrs.
X is suffering from lack of companionship after she lost her husband. This is evident from
her quotes, “after my husband passed away, I feel extremely lonely and my son also remains
busy with his work and hardly can make time for me”. Moreover while telling the incidence

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about the death of her husband 5 years back, she was getting lost through her conversation
and her voice is getting cracked. She also reported that she miss her husband a lot and no
longer wants to survive in this world alone. Thus this clearly represents that she is suffering
from late life depression (Szanto et al. 2012). She also reported that she suffers from lack of
appetite and hates to cook for herself when she is alone at home. When I visited her kitchen
in order to fetch water for myself I saw that the kitchen is extremely dirty with food particles
scattered throughout and bees flying over it. Moreover, his son also found saying that, “Mom
refuses to go out of home and lacks social participation; she keeps herself confined within
home for days after days”. Thus it is it can be said that Mrs. X lack social and community
level participation. Moreover, she also mentioned that she is facing pain in her knees along
with difficult in walking without support. According to Greenspan et al. (2012), pain in knee
joint is common in women who are over 50 years of age and mainly occurs due to
osteoporosis and lack of treatment along with walking support can result in accidental fall
and other mobility related complications. According to Ungar et al. (2013), women suffering
from osteoporosis might encounter accidental falls leading to fatal injury and main treatment
include proper medication control of osteoporosis along with physiotherapy.
Thus it can be said that her lack of social contact, loss of companionship, lack of
appetite or lack of proper diet, basic level hygiene and mobility problems are the principal
barriers towards healthy ageing.
Reflection
The interview process acted as a learning lesson for me. It helped me to understand
that sympathizing and active listening helps to gain the confidence of the interview and
thereby getting success in extracting important information. The new learning which I came
up with while conducting the interview is lack of companionship or emotional support from

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the family members can force the aged group of population to pass on to depression and this
affects their quality of life along with the path of healthy aging. I also noticed that clinical
practise has changed. At present the clinical practise is mainly based on nursing reflection
and then generating therapeutic plan on the basis of evidence based practise.
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that environment, hygiene, social
participation and proper diet are the main factors promoting towards health ageing. It can also
be said that clinical reasoning cycle is the best possible nursing approach to gather relevant
clues and information followed by processing of information. The processing of information
helps in the identification of the problems areas along with framing recommendation via
evidence based practise.

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References
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