Life Stage Consideration- The older Person

Running Head: NURSING
Life Stage Consideration- The older Person
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

NURSING1
Part 1
In my opinion, the common stereotypes on elderly person are that ageing makes them
less creative and more dependant, they are lonely and senile which makes them unable to
adapt to new situation and makes them unproductive (Dionigi, 2015). As a registered nurse, I
believe, stereotyping an elderly patient affects the way of care giving as it fails to address
specific needs or presuming a condition which might not be present in an individual. This
will lead to low patient satisfaction and improper or inaccurate application of health service
which is barriers to provide holistic health care service (Bernoth & Winkler, 2017).
In my own understanding, the term ‘aged’ means a person a living for a specified
period of time, ‘ageing’ means the process of growing old, ‘elderly’ relates to a person who is
old or in the process of ageing and ‘old’ means a person who has lived their life for a long
and cannot be termed as young (Dionigi, 2015).
During my first job as a nurse, I was being assigned to look after mouth care of
elderly residents of that area. I found that most of the people was suffering from stomatitis as
they were all wearing denture. I was assigned for an eighty years old patient having denture
associated stomatitis (Shi et al., 2016). He also could not move from bed and had dementia.
As a nurse my first priority was to provide dental care to my patient (Walker & Jackson,
2017). I was instructed not to replace denture as it will cause severe pain. My patient’s
grandson forced me to replace denture. I did not remove it in the first place. After repeated
request from my patients’ grandson, I replaced his dentures which worsen the pain and his
condition.
I think the act done by me was not ethically correct. The National Competency
standard of Registered nurses mentions that nurse should be very precise in their action and
work must be done accordance to the ethics (Sasso, Bagnasco, Bianchi, Bressan, &

NURSING2
Carnevale, 2016). As a nursing student I was taught to respect and listen to the patients’
family members. Although I through this act I have violated the code of nursing ethics
(Milligan, 2012). As a nurse, my first priority would have been to educate his grandson about
the ill-effects of replacing denture. I should have protested and not removed the denture. I
did not ask for any help from professional to reduce the pain of my patient. Through this act I
was very unprofessional and was in an ethical dilemma.
From this event I learned a lot from my mistakes. I should have been more aware of
the ethical values. I should have taken a senior’s permission before replacing the denture. My
senior would have educated his family member about the ill effects of replacing a denture.
My senior would have also convinced his family and this event might not have occurred. As a
nurse, I must practice according to the code of Ethics for Registered Nurse (Butts, & Rich
2019).
From this reflection, I will have to be aware of all the activities which might violet the
standards, ethics and moral values. I will try to follow the code of ethics. My priority must be
precise care for the patient and satisfy patients’ family through my behaviour. I accurately
access all situations. In case of any ethical dilemma I will inform my senior and take help. I
aim to understand choices of nursing care and maintain proficiency in my practice.
Part 2
Currency
Yes.
The article chosen in part 1 of the assignment was published in 29th March, 2012. It
was last updated in 2016 (Reyniers et al., 2016). For this case study, current research is
required to be aware of palliative nursing care. The information provided in the article is
current enough and the links provided are active.