Analysis of Quality of Care and Dignity in Aged Care: A Report

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A QUALITY OF CARE IN ELDERLY IN AGED CARE
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Table of Contents
1.1 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1.2 Quality within the care of elderly in aged care..........................................................................3
1.3 Dignity within the care of the older people...............................................................................4
1.4 The vision of care for the elderly in future................................................................................5
1.5 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7
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Literature Review
1.1 Introduction
The residential facilities of aged care seem to provide care for the elderly people. Through
various findings, it has also been revealed that, though the people are satisfied through the
quality of care that is received, but, they cannot live their life with full potential. The recent
issues such as, the increasing population of the elderly people, resulting in the complex problems
of health, policy inadequacies and the financial demands needs investigation within the sector of
aged care. Hence, the present literature focuses upon the quality of care for elderly within the
aged care. The residential care is seen to require analysis because of highly vulnerable nature of
the recipients.
1.2 Quality within the care of elderly in aged care
As opined by Silver et al., (2018), in the context of quality care in association with the elderly
people within the aged care organizations, the characteristics that are often appeared as a basis
regarding the good quality of life involves a living within the home as compared with an
institutionalized environment and social connection. The good quality of care generally focuses
upon providing adequate assistance that is within time and which is appropriate for the needs of
individual. Based on a mature judgment, it needs to be determined most of the people consists of
an instinctive as well as distressing and bleak view that results in disability, ageing, death and
dementia as well. Regarding the views of some people, it can be observed that, many individual
prefer death rather than living in an aged care. This in turn, do not reflect necessarily to the
objective assessment of the real care that are known to be delivered within the residential
facilities, rather it reflects about the fear for losing autonomy, independence and identity. Hence,
this can be termed as the immediate concerned area for the elderly people within the aged care
organizations (Petersen & Ogawa, 2018). A larger number of studies based on the quality of
aged care were known to found the residents were mostly concerned with the lack of autonomy
and also faced difficulty in developing relationships within care.
The main concern for the elderly people can be related to the good staffs that is, the need based
on positive connections with the other people regarding the residents. This helps in extending the
relationship within families and staffs (Harrison et al., 2018). The particular achievement
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requires employees consisting of the relationship with positive attitude those who must work for
building trust as well as involves family such as caring for their loved ones. Hence, the good
staffs must be technically proficient and should also behave in a proper manner with other
people. Apart from these, various studies have determined that residents consists of the right for
feeling safe, respected, valued and should comprise the ability to exercise their own choice and
to express as well. Hence, the organizations of aged care should oversee upon the absence for the
harmful events such as preventing abuse, should not neglect the elderly and similar other
activities. Thus, a positive culture should be created within the environment and also a positive
observation based on the rights is essential in relation with the quality of life for the elderly
people.
1.3 Dignity within the care of the older people
Dignity has become the central concern within the policy of health associated to the vulnerable
and older people. The theoretical and empirical literature related to the dignity has been
extensive and is likely for confusing the clarity within the meaning based on dignity for the
nurses within practice. According to the views of Gnanamanickam et al. (2018), this can be
related with the model of health belief that was developed in the year of 1950s through the social
scientists within the health service of public in US, for understanding the failure based on the
people for adopting strategies related to the prevention of diseases. The model of health belief is
known to derive through behavioural and psychological theory along with the foundation of the
two components associated to the behaviour that are related to health. These components are the
desire for avoiding illness and conversely getting well if someone is already ill and the next
component is the belief a specific action of health must prevent and cure the illness. There exists
of six constructs that are associated with the model of health belief that are perceived
susceptibility that refers to the subjective perception of a person.
The other construct is perceived severity, that is referred to as the feelings of the person;
perceived benefits on the other hand is referred to as the perception based on effectiveness for
the different actions that are available for the reduction of illness and diseases. The other
construct is the perceived barriers, which refers to the feelings of the person based on the
obstacles for performing the recommended action of health (Stevenset et al., 2018). Other than
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these components, the two other components that are cue of action, which denotes the stimulus
that is needed for triggering the process of decision making and self efficacy that refers to a level
of confidence that a person carries for successfully performing behaviour.
1.4 The vision of care for the elderly in future
As stated by Mahmoudi et al. (2018), the health needs based on the older people should be
addressed in a comprehensive manner along with a patient centered care. For most of the older
adults, care should be involved within the preventive services which address the lifestyle
modification as well as coordinated treatment related to acute and chronic health conditions.
Regarding the frail and allied older adults, the social services need to maintain an order of
improving health. The respective social services should be integrated along with the health and
care services for their financing and delivery. Moreover, efforts should be made for reducing the
wider variation within the practice protocols of providers that must enhance the quality based on
care regarding the older adults. The principle associated to the comprehensive care involves the
increase of socio-demographic diversity related to the older adults as, the percentage of the
ethnic minorities within the older population that is known to increase dramatically. The next
principle that should be addressed are considered as the vision of care for the future that is, it
needs to be given in an efficient manner. Based on the views of Knodel, Teerawichitchainan &
Pothisiri, (2018), the providers should be trained in a proper way for working in the
interdisciplinary teams as well as delivering and financing the systems should also support the
interdisciplinary approach. Hence, the organization of aged care should provide better services to
the elderly people maintaining their dignity as well.
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1.5 Conclusion
Based on the above discussion, the present study has focused upon the study of care quality for
the elderly people in aged care. This involved various discussions upon the quality for care of
elderly, dignity based on the care of older people and also the vision related to the care of the
elderly people in future. The concrete discussions were made through the use of various articles
and journals. Apart from this, there is also a gap within the above literature such as, the
limitation regarding the theory of health belief model and also the quality care for minority
people have not been highlighted in the present study. However, it has emphasized upon the
relevant theory related to the present context along with the areas of improvement for the quality
care of elderly.
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References
Gnanamanickam, E. S., Dyer, S. M., Milte, R., Harrison, S. L., Liu, E., Easton, T., ... &
Whitehead, C. (2018). Direct health and residential care costs of people living with dementia in
Australian residential aged care. International journal of geriatric psychiatry, 33(7), 859-866.
Harrison, S. L., O’Donnell, L. K., Bradley, C. E., Milte, R., Dyer, S. M., Gnanamanickam, E.
S., ... & Crotty, M. (2018). Associations between the drug burden index, potentially
inappropriate medications and quality of life in residential aged care. Drugs & aging, 35(1), 83-
91.
Knodel, J., Teerawichitchainan, B., & Pothisiri, W. (2018). Caring for Thai older persons with
long-term care needs. Journal of aging and health, 30(10), 1516-1535.
Mahmoudi, E., Zazove, P., Meade, M., & McKee, M. M. (2018). Association between hearing
aid use and health care use and cost among older adults with hearing loss. JAMA
Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery, 144(6), 498-505.
Petersen, P. E., & Ogawa, H. (2018). Promoting Oral Health and Quality of Life of Older
People-The Need for Public Health Action. Oral health & preventive dentistry, 16(2), 113-124.
Silver, H. J., Pratt, K. J., Bruno, M., Lynch, J., Mitchell, K., & McCauley, S. M. (2018).
Effectiveness of the malnutrition quality improvement initiative on practitioner malnutrition
knowledge and screening, diagnosis, and timeliness of malnutrition-related care provided to
older adults admitted to a tertiary care facility: a pilot study. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition
and Dietetics, 118(1), 101-109.
Stevens, B. A., Shaw, R., Bewert, P., Salt, M., Alexander, R., & Loo Gee, B. (2018). Systematic
review of aged care interventions for older prisoners. Australasian journal on ageing, 37(1), 34-
42.
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