Assignment on Gerontological Nursing

Running head: GERONTOLOGICAL NURSING
TRANSITION AND AGING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

GERONTOLOGICAL NURSING
1
Life transition is the change of life events occurring in the life of an individual.
Change of life events such as a child growing up, leaving home for education, marriage and
growing old. The life transition has a significant impact on the daily life of the older adult
(Axon, 2017). The older adults develop significant mental health and physical issues
throughout the transition. It examines the disputes that are related to aging from social to
environmental, financial, behavioural and health issues (Binh Tran & Zikos, 2019). The
transition can be positive as well as negative. The main aim of this paper is to discuss various
alterations faced by older adults. The paper is structured to discuss the feeling of the older
people during the transition, the ways the older adults handle loss, grief, and new problems
that might develop due to transition.
The life transitions faced by aging adults are retirement, health, home care services,
relocation, and personal loss. In the case of retirement, many people just need to retire due to
illness. It leads to resentfulness and remorse. The transition might be heard for some
individual who is working to support himself or herself and putting much effort into it. The
effect of this transition on mental and physical health varies from person to person
influencing due to the cause of retirement (Bloemen, Hochguertel & Zweerink, 2017). The
physical and mental health varies from person to person. It has been noticed that about one-
third of the retirees undergoes exertion in adjusting towards specific aspects of retirements.
Few people retire to quite work as well as there are cases where people are forced to retire.
Generally, retirement at an early age and forced retirement are not acceptable for the family
member as it affects the family’s economy. Retirees undergo depression, anxiety and other
mental health problem as there is a reduction in the family’s income. It has been seen that
retirement because of a 5 to 16% increase in problems linked with daily activities and
mobility, a 6-9% increase in the deterioration of mental health and 5-6% upsurge in illness. It

GERONTOLOGICAL NURSING
2
is observed that the older adult misses the boost of self-esteem and their income (Creamer &
Austin, 2017).
Studies have shown that retirement has a strong impact on the physical and mental
health of older adults. The older women after forced or abrupt retirement undergo symptoms
related to depression and this effect is strengthened if her spouse is undergoing functional
restrictions. However, the effect on men is different. In a recent study, a comparative study
was done over 392 retired persons as compared to 618 working individuals to interpret
whether the retirement age of 60 is linked with mental and physical health (Fé &
Hollingsworth, 2015). The output was the deterioration of mental health for the working
individual nevertheless, there was a decline in the physical health for both working and
retired individuals.
However, the aging process needs proper maintenance of physical and mental health
further causing involvement in social and related accomplishments. Nevertheless, retirement
leads to triggers the alteration causing social devaluation causing loss of professional identity.
Working is considered as an important element for building up of the personality. This
personal identity is linked to self and altered recognition (Fitzpatrick & Moore, 2018). Due to
retirement, the person loses professional identity, therefore, affecting the subject and socially
shared values. Hence, the relationship between retirement and social environment is dialectic.
The social environment plays an important role as it reminds the older people of becoming
economically unproductive. Retirement strongly influences the physical and mental health of
an older adult as it has indirect ramifications on the rational perspective of the individual. The
cognitive decline of the older adult causes declination in physical activities, intellectual
stimulation and then further leading to dementia.

GERONTOLOGICAL NURSING
3
Retirement increases poor health by 0.12 percentage and enhances mobility
difficulties by 0.66 percent. The retirement for few people gets positively integrated causing
substantial damage to the psychic structure (Gorry, Gorry & Slavov, 2018). It is manifested
by feelings such as depression, irritability, anxiety and general satisfaction causing a
reduction in life quality. This represents the chance of cognitive integrity as the older people
show lesser performance in memory tests providing executive functions and attention
discrepancy.
The ramification for retirement is linked with subjective and emotional life interfering
with the eating pattern. The loneliness for the elderly population causes the individual to lose
interest in eating, as there is a reduction in their income. Research has shown that about 15
percent of older adults take lesser food than 100Kcal/day (Insler, 2014). Therefore,
nutritionally they get affected. Hence, it is proved that the behaviour of the older person aids
health professionals to work with this populace, thus bringing them closer towards reality.
International Classification of Disease (ICD-9) determines the health status codes for
diabetes, asthma, arthritis, hypertension, and depression. This weakness is highly noted in the
population of older adults undergoing retirement. It affects the life of the individual however
the outcome is not measurable when the data for mortality is analysed because it is not
considered as the reason for death (Lane & Fink, 2015). A person at the age of 61 undergoes
a risk score for upcoming health problems. Retirement causes an increase in the risk of
diabetes. The complications derived due to psychological and economic aspects during
retirement have interrelated influence over the retiree’s health. The retirement transition
allows an older adult to withdraw from the unhealthy and stressful working situations thus
advancing in an argument contrary to the enhancement of the legislative age of retirement. In
a few cases where the person undergoes forced retirement, suffers health effects, as there is a
sudden decrease in income and insurance policies (Lane, Leibert & Goka-Dubose, 2017). As