Understanding Stereotypes and Effects on Nursing Practice in Elderly Care

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s name

NURISNG ASSIGNMENT1
Part a:
Understanding of stereotype and effect on nursing practice:
As population ages, older adults of the generation usually experience complex health
problem and chronic diseases which affected their quality of life (Kagan & Melendez‐Torres,
2015). To provide them safe and responsive care, nurses are required to an integrated person-
centered approach which will empower them, boost their self-esteem and change their perception
of living a healthy life (Williams, Kemper & Hummert, 2016). However, from the decade,
gerontologist and nurses working in the gerontology departments tend to have a negative
perception towards the older patients which affected the wellbeing of the older individuals. As
discussed by Fernández-Ballesteros et al. (2018), the nursing professionals tend to have cultural
stereotypic perception and they view the older adults as high warmth and low competence.
Majority of the nursing professionals have sympathy, pity and envy and low admiration for the
older patients which affected their professional practice and they failed to support the need of the
elder population (Chrisle, Barney, & Palatino, 2016). The prime reason behind this stereotypic
perception is inadequate literacy, personal values and beliefs and insufficient course of nursing in
the curriculum (Edvardsson, Watt & Pearce, 2017). Consequently, it affected my practice as
registered nurses as I adopted these values from my coworkers. The discrimination behavior,
negligence and diminishing their social worth commonly affect practice as a registered nurse
(Tobiano et al., 2016)
Understanding of the term “aged” , “aging” elderly” and “old”:
Considering the term “aged”, it is referred to the individuals who have already lived or
existed for a long period of time. On the other hand, aging is referred to the process of becoming

NURISNG ASSIGNMENT2
older and it represents the accumulation of changes in a human being over the time which
include physiological, social and psychological changes in the individuals. The term elderly is
referred to the individuals are experiencing the process of the becoming old and associated
changes. The term older is used interchangeably with elderly as both refer to the individuals
who are experiencing the process of becoming old and usually refers to the individuals aged 60
years or above 60 years. In my opinion as a registered nurse, due to complex health issues,
they require specialized safe and responsive care which will support their wellbeing.
Hence, to conclude it can be said that the older or elderly patients require specialized
care in order to cope up with their complex health issues. In this case, the negative stereotypic
perception of nurse would affect the care as they are neglected an discriminated.
Part b:
Currency:
The paper that is used in this assignment for supporting the perception of the nurses
regarding older adults is a current paper which is published in 5th September 2018 and
researchers.
Reliability:
The authors of the paper included in-depth information regarding the perception of the
nurses or nursing professionals towards the older population who are seeking help. The
researchers included information from a total of 19 resources which are peer-reviewed journals
which supported the claims of the authors.
Authority: