Nanyang Polytechnic HS3203: Eldercare Reflection on Ageing-in-Place

This report is a reflective analysis of a student's experience with an eldercare client, Mr. Din, focusing on enhancing his ageing-in-place. The student, through an interview, gathered information about Mr. Din's health history, functional abilities, cognitive state, social and spiritual activities, and financial situation. The assessment involved tools like the Katz index, IADL, and geriatric depression scale. Based on the findings, the student proposed a plan that included precautionary measures for his physical limitations, advice on his vision impairment, and suggestions for a healthy lifestyle. The report discusses the interview process, resource gathering, personal feelings, and areas for improvement, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive assessment and care planning for elderly individuals to improve their quality of life and enable them to age in place successfully. The report references various academic sources to support the findings and recommendations.

Brief introduction about the client
My client’s name was Mr Din who is 67 years old and he is 61kgs. He has a height of
168 cm and He is a Muslim and is presently divorced. His hobbies include watching YouTube
videos. From the interview it is found that he is presently facing heart failure disorders and he
has been facing the same since 2016. He used to smoke in his early life but now he uses nicotine
patches.
Meeting the client
The ageing in place process includes slowing down the ageing process in order to
improve the life of the old aged people (Harridge & Lazarus, 2018). In order to understand the
same in a better way we had an interview with Mr Din, who is the neighbor of our team mate.
Information gathered from client’s interview
He is a well-groomed person, kempt and has high self-esteem and he also has baldness.
He has blindness in his right eyes because of retinal detachment. Various assessment tools have
been used for the purpose of assessing all the information collected from the client. In order to
assess the functional activities carried out by Mr Din, Katz index is used (Rodrigues, Tavares et
al., 2017). His functional assessment was also carried out by us using IADL. Cognitive
assessment was the next assessment carried out by us and it helped us in understanding his
psychological state with the help of geriatric depression scale. Further we assessed his social
activities and from that it was found out that he meets his family quite often and also has good
relationship with his son who gives him social support. His inclination towards spiritual activities
such as reading Quran, his beliefs about smoking because of being a Muslim, all helped us in

assessing his spiritual activities and collect necessary information from the same. By carrying out
the financial assessment we understood about his financial position.
A proposed plan for client
In order to assess his functional activities, we used the IADL assessment technique. It
was observed from the information collected that he was capable of walking steadily but he
walked slowly (Mirza et al., 2018). However in order to make sure that he does not meet with
accident, various precautionary methods were suggested to him such that he can use non-slippery
slippers, Matts and others. In order to deal with his retinal vision problem, I cautioned him about
the risks of driving with such impaired vision. I also asked him to undergo the retinal detachment
surgery. I had given him various suggestions to improve the quality of his life by following a diet
plan, to deal with his gout issues and others.
Methods used for gathering resources
The resources have been gathered by me through the primary sources such as a direct
face-to-face interview with the client in order to get all the necessary information that I needed
for my proposed plan (Abbas et al., 2017). I have also gathered the necessary information from
my client’s neighbors and community people about his participation in various community
activities.
My feelings after the interview
The interview made me feel that ageing process is a common phenomenon with the only
difference is that this process can be slowed down by carrying out various activities such that the
old aged people can have a good quality life by taking part in all activities such as various
cognitive activities, functional activities and others (Stones & Gullifer, 2016).

How could I have taken a better interview or areas where I can improve on?
I could have taken a better interview if I had some more time and therefore time
constraint was there while carrying out the interview due to which I could not collected more
relevant information. I could have taken more information about my client from more reliable
sources.

References
Abbas, R., Riecken, T., Seymour, J., & Le Tran, M. A. (2017). Data Collection 1: Observations
and Document Analysis: Who's looking?. In Qualitative Research and Intercultural
Understanding (pp. 38-47). Routledge.
Harridge, S. D., & Lazarus, N. R. (2018). The inherent human ageing process and the facilitating
role of exercise. Frontiers in Physiology, 9, 1135.
Mirza, S. S., Sapkota, S., Ramirez, J., Stuss, D. T., Herrmann, N., Lanctot, K. L., ... & Masellis,
M. (2018). NEUROPSYCHIATRIC SYMPTOMS PREDICT DAILY LIFE
FUNCTIONALITY IN DEMENTIA PATIENTS: RESULTS FROM THE
SUNNYBROOK DEMENTIA STUDY. Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the
Alzheimer's Association, 14(7), P1558.
Rodrigues, L., Tavares, D. M., Molina, N. F., Silveira, T., & da Silva, S. E. (2017). FAMILY
FUNCTIONALITY IN COMMUNITY ELDERLY. Innovation in aging, 772-772.
Stones, D., & Gullifer, J. (2016). ‘At home it's just so much easier to be yourself’: older adults'
perceptions of ageing in place. Ageing & Society, 36(3), 449-481.