Nursing Care of Elderly: Roles, Challenges, and Future Implications

Nursing Care of Elderly 1
NURSING CARE OF ELDERLY
By (Name)
Course
Instructor
Institution
Date

Nursing Care of Elderly 2
Nursing Care of Elderly
Nurses have been entrusted with a critical role in the promotion of public health.
Throughout history, nurses have primarily been focused on the prevention of diseases and
fostering healthy behaviors among their patient populations. However, given their vast
experience and multi-disciplinary knowledge, a rather more complexity in their roles has been
presented in their scope of nursing practice (Gholizadeh & Nayeri, 2013). With special emphasis
on the provision of care for the older adults, this paper aims to review the nursing care of elderly
and how nurses’ roles are increasingly changing with the diverse needs presented by this patient
population.
Overview of Nursing Care of Elderly and Relevance to the Aged Care Nursing
Aged care nursing requires that community based perspectives be enhanced in order to
promote better aging of older individuals who are either at home or in nursing homes. Nurses
should also aim to address the complex issues that are faced by the elderly population and their
families when these patient populations are transitioning from home care to acute care settings.
For instance, the nursing practice need to address the impacts of dementia or any other illness
that may impact on quality treatment related to the patient and their families (Capezuti &
Hamers, 2013, p. 1153). As such, nursing care of elderly therefore emphasize on nurses’
common concern regarding the need to ensure that the elderly population experience a
maintained quality of life and enjoy life long quantity of years. Ideally, this focus is primarily
important in addressing the aforementioned issues that are experienced by the elderly patients
and their families in different care settings.

Nursing Care of Elderly 3
Additionally, nursing care of elderly strives to uphold and address the ethical concerns
that may arise when providing care to older populations. Notably, aged care nursing emphasizes
on the need to focus on ethics while caring for older patient populations and their effects on
caregivers, and patients and their families. In this light, ethical considerations such as autonomy,
informed consent and self-determination have proven to be key issues that need to be adhered to
in protection of the well-being of the patient (Suhonen, Stolt & Launis, 2010). Thus, nursing care
of elderly, is essential in ensuring that nurses in their practice do not engage in malpractices in
which they may be found to be liable when ethical considerations are taken into perspective.
Relevance of Nursing Care of Elderly for the Future Nursing Role
In comparison to other age groups as well as other patient populations, evidence indicates
that older adults are in need of disproportionately higher amounts of health care services.
Furthermore, they are more likely to experience adverse events such as fall injuries during
hospitalization and they are also more prone to health complications such as pressure ulcers. In
consideration of these factors coupled with the fact that that the number of aging individuals is
increasing, it is expected that there will be an increase in the demand of health services by this
group of individuals. To the nursing practice, this effect therefore presents a bug challenge in
their provision of high quality care (Capezuti et al, 2012, p. 3117).
Also given their different and demanding health needs, nurses are therefore needed to
provide specialized care as well as implement evidence-based practices that will ideally
contribute to a positive nursing practice environment. The nursing roles are therefore evolving at
alarming rates requiring nurses to evolve in their provision of care to the elderly. For instance, in
nursing care homes, nurses have been inclined to shift from task-oriented care to relation-