Aged Care Nursing in Australia Despite

Running head: AGED CARE NURSING
Aged Care Nursing
Author Name(s)
Institution
Author Note

AGED CARE NURSING 1
Abstract
Older people in the society experience health deterioration due to presence of different
conditions. Most of these conditions affect them physically, psychologically and emotionally.
Health policies in Australia have come up with approaches addressing these growing health
demands of the aging population. With the policies in place, health care management plans are
targeted at alleviating pain and restoring the patients to their functional state. This paper will be
an analysis of the past literature on health issues facing older persons. The paper will also discuss
management plans as presented by the literature. In the scope of this discussion, the paper will
also discuss in details these management plans. The paper will finish by illustrating how the
gained knowledge is helpful in a healthcare work environment.
Keywords: Geriatrics, Gerontology, Nutrition, Polypharmacy, Frailty, pathophysiology

AGED CARE NURSING 2
Aged Care Nursing
Both Geriatrics and Gerontology are the two main disciplines that deal with the care of
the aged people in the nursing practice. Both programs emphasize providing nurses with
competence and knowledge in provision of care in an aged-care environment. However, the
complexities of this practice extended beyond the usual bedside nursing. With this, both the
aged care nursing and services have evolved in response to policies, reforms and increasing
clients’ expectations thus creating two main environments. These environments are either
rehabilitation of the aged within a nursing care facility or providing care within a community-
based setting. This paper will mainly focus on the principles and management of clients in
rehabilitation care settings.
Aged Care Nursing in Australia
Despite its smaller proportion when compared to other developed countries, the
population of the aged in Australia was expected to rise from 15% in 2015 to about 22.5% by the
mid-century (McPake & Mahal, 2017). The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare confirmed
on June 2015 that there were roughly 176,967 aged people living in residential care settings with
96% of them being above 65 years old (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare[AIHW],
2015). The current Australian policy for aging encourages independent living within the
community through the provision of care under community-based care services (Aged Care
(Living Longer Living Better) Act, 2013). The rise of the Australian aged population can be
attributed to two main factors. The first one is the decline in the mortality rate among adults
together with the low fertility rates (McPake & Mahal, 2017).

AGED CARE NURSING 3
Health issues with Ageing
Among these issues of health that older people face include increasing frailty and
disability, and deterioration of health (Hillen, Vitry, & Caughey, 2017). In a study conducted in
(Hillen et al., 2017), the authors sought to analyze the burden of disease among the Australian
aged people under residential care. Using a cross-sectional analysis, the authors found that there
were 48% of people living with dementia, 22.5% living with depression, and 14.2% living with
arthritis. The authors also found 17.1% of unclassified conditions which included falls, urinary
incontinence and falls to name a few. According to Hillen et al. (2017), all these issues come due
to presence of geriatric syndrome and other long-term comorbidities. For instance, most older
people experience problems such as cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, musculoskeletal,
neurological, endocrinological, respiratory, cancer, injuries from falls and psychological
problems (Hillen et al., 2017).
In pathophysiology in aging, geriatric syndromes (GS) is regarded as the main cause of
disability and frailty (Hillen et al., 2017). This condition includes various condition associated
with aging which among them is incontinence, delirium, falls, dementia, visual impairment,
auditory impairment, pressure ulcers, sarcopenia, frailty, malnutrition, immobility, depression
and gait disturbances (Ates Bulut, Soysal, & Isik, 2018). According to Hillen et al. (2017),
having multiple chronic conditions and geriatric syndrome creates secondary problems such as
continued multifocal pain.
The work of Sieck (2017) enlightens that aging is the main factor in the multiple chronic
conditions involved. While looking at this rationale, the interdisciplinary field of geroscience
aims to enlighten on the relationship between people’s aging and chronic-related diseases
(ACDs) and all GSs (Kennedy et al., 2014). Many of the scholars in geroscience have concluded