Critique of Healthy Aging Quiz: An Interview with an Elderly Person

This essay presents an analysis of healthy aging through an interview with a 75-year-old woman named Mrs. Lily Green and a critique of the Healthy Aging Quiz. The interview explores Mrs. Green's perceptions of aging, her lifestyle, and the challenges she faces with unmanaged chronic conditions like osteoarthritis and diabetes. The essay discusses the importance of obtaining informed consent and establishing rapport during the interview process, while also addressing barriers encountered, such as Mrs. Green's pain and concentration difficulties. The quiz is critiqued for its focus on healthy lifestyles, health behaviors, diet, addiction, sleep, and social support. The essay concludes that Mrs. Green has poor health literacy and misconceptions about aging, but benefits from strong social support from family and friends. The essay underscores the need for healthcare professionals to address these issues to promote healthy aging.

Running head: ASSESSMENT TASK 2A
ASSESSMENT TASK 2A
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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ASSESSMENT TASK 2A
Introduction:
The essay is mainly focused on the discussion of the topic of healthy aging where an
interview would be conducted to an elderly individual. It would discuss about the details of the
elderly person and her perceptions about healthy aging process. The Healthy Aging quiz would
be used for developing an understanding about the lifestyle of the patient which would in turn
help in identifying the issues that need to be taken in consideration by healthcare professionals to
help her age smoothly. This essay will critique the quiz and would also describe the various
barriers that had been experienced by the interviewer in the process. This essay would be guiding
the completion of the next assignment successfully.
Identification of the elderly person in the interview:
Mrs. Lily Green is a 75 year old lady who lives alone in the two storied house. She used
to work in a departmental store as a cashier and had retired at the age of 60. Since then, she had
led a sedentary life in her own house. She felt that she had worked enough all during her
adulthood and she thinks that it is the time of her taking rest from work. She looks overweight
from her appearance but wore neat clothes. She states that Layla is her care attendant who does 8
to 8 duty and helps her with her regular activities of daily living. She is visited by her son and
daughter in law on every weekend. They stay for two days and leave on Sunday night. They live
in the next city and they drives to her home. She enjoys with her grandchildren and told that both
her son and daughter in law are very caring and supportive of her needs.

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Consent for the interviewee:
Before initiation of the interview and the quiz, it is the duty of the interviewer to seek for
consent from the interviewee. Therefore, she was held the consent for which had the details
about the project, intention of the interview and the ways it would help in successful completion
of the project taken up by the student. She was stated that all her information would be kept
private and confidential and none of the information would be leaked or mis-utilized. She was
also given the entire freedom about the information she would not like to share or she could also
withdraw herself from the entire interview process. It is a duty of the healthcare student to ensure
development a good rapport in order to undertake a person-centered assessment (Halloway and
Galvin 2016)). Hence, the student should be initiating a normal conversation and following the
formal introductory period, the student should then engage in some informal discussions. When
the patient would feel comfortable, then only the student should ask for undertaking the quiz and
the interview. When the interviewee would permit, then consent form would be provided and
after completion of it, the interviewer should start with the interview.
General characteristics of interviewee:
While interacting with the interviewee a number of aspects had been noted. It was found
that she had a belief that chronic disorders are bound to happen with old age and hence taking
initiatives would be futile. It was found that she had poor health literacy about her disorders of
osteoarthritis, diabetes, breathing issues in the night for which all her health symptoms were
unmanaged. She was suffering from obesity with a BMI of 37. She had unmanaged blood
glucose levels and often forgets in taking medication at the right time. She also suffers from pain
in her joints due to osteoarthritis. She lives by the support of her acre attendant. However, she

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had a very good social support from her family members, neighbors and friends. She drinks and
smokes often as she feels that it helps in overcoming her sufferings of the chronic ailments.
Issues arising during the interview:
The interview was quite smooth with very few interruptions. However, the patient was
really suffering from pain in her joints of the knee which was affecting her zeal to participate in
the interview. She was provided the option to quit the interview but she somehow managed. This
acted as a barrier as she could not concentrate on the questions that were asked. The questions
had to be repeated again and again which took more time than it was allotted for the interview.
These were the issues that were faced during the interview.
Critique of the quiz:
The quiz had been developed by the National Ageing and Research institute in Australia
and comprised of about 22 questions. On close analysis of the question, it was found that the
nature of the questions mainly varied across different important categories (NARI 2016). These
are developing ideas about healthy lifestyles and various health behaviors that result in fitter
health, diet compositions, and addiction issues, sleeping difficulties and social supports (Cyarto,
Vrantsidis & Meyer 2012)). It can be found that this quiz mainly act as the close ended
questionnaires helping the professionals to develop an idea about the lifestyle choices and the
health behaviors adopted by the individuals and whether they can help the person in healthy
aging (Cherry et al. 2016)). This can enable the professionals to develop care priorities to help
the patient age well.

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ASSESSMENT TASK 2A
Ageing process as experienced by the interviewee:
The patient is seen to suffer a lot because of her unmanaged chronic health symptoms.
However, she is of the opinion that she believes that chronic ailments are parts of aging process
and hence she had accepted living life this way. She is of the opinion that she is living a happier
life emotionally because she has the support of her family, friends and relatives where she
specially mentioned how her children make her fill full of life. She dreams of living more days to
be with her grandchildren. She states that the social support she gets help her get over her
physical sufferings of pain. However, she accepts the fact that she would like to get help from
professional to learn more about healthy aging process and can live well.
Conclusion:
From the entire discussion, it was noted that she had poor literacy skills for which she
was not able to manage her chronic health symptoms successfully. She did not know the
importance of medications and often missed them. She also had the misconception that aging
would always accompany chronic health conditions. However, she is seen to have proper social
supports that are helping her to get over the stresses of poor physical health condition. She has
support from families and friends who help her to live well. Another important aspect is that she
has poor lifestyle choices, has addiction issues and remains an inactive and sedentary life for she
believes that she should be resting in her last years of life

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References:
Cherry, K.E., Brigman, S., Lyon, B.A., Blanchard, B., Walker, E.J. and Smitherman, E.A., 2016.
Self-reported ageism across the lifespan: Role of aging knowledge. The International Journal of
Aging and Human Development, 83(4), pp.366-380.
Cyarto, E, Dow,B, Vrantsidis,F and Meyer, C 2012, ‘Promoting healthy ageing: development of
the Healthy Ageing Quiz’, Australasian Journal on Ageing, vol. 32, no.1,pp.15-20
Holloway, I. and Galvin, K., 2016. Qualitative research in nursing and healthcare. John Wiley
& Sons.
Nari.net.au 2016, Healthy Ageing Quiz, National ageing Research institute, retrieved from:
https://www.nari.net.au/files/files/documents/nari_healthy_ageing_quiz_0.pdf

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Appendix:
Interview transcript:
I: Hi, Mrs. Green. How are you doing today?
Lily: I am doing fine. Thank you
(informal conversation had already been conducted which had made her feel comfortable now
and following this, I initiated the interview)
I: As we have discussed earlier, I am here to take an interview regarding your perceptions of
healthy aging. Do you permit me to initiate it?
Lily: Yes sure!
I: How would describe your experience of aging?
Lily: It had been a mixed result of both positive and negative experiences with different highs
and lows….
I: would you mind enlightening me more on your experiences
Lily: Well, I am suffering from a number of disorders and I am quite tired of them now, you
see… diabetes, high blood pressure… the pain from osteoarthritis crushes me sometimes.
I: what do you do to help yourself overcome the pain or the symptoms….
Lily: Nothing as such… I try to take my medications on time but on many days I forget.
Sometimes my attendant helps me to remember about taking the medications… you see I think
nothing works and I often get confused whether any such medications really work or not

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I: Have not your GP or nurse told you the strategies that you can take to minimize the risks?
Lily: I believe that disorders are bound to come with age and I do not pay any heed to them….
I: how do you spend your time? Do you go for walks? Spend time inside your house
Lily: I only do for walks on two days a week with my attendant to the nearby park. I do not enjoy
it much as my pain in the knees prevents me from enjoying. However, I do not mind. I spend
time playing crosswords, painting, and reading books
I: that is very good to hear, Mrs. Green. Do your families and friends meet with you?
Lily: Yea yea… they love me very much and I often have my house full of guests and friends.
My son and daughter in law come with the children every week and we have every good time.
They take much acre of me.
I: that is very good to hear Mrs. Green. If you mind, can I take a small quiz about your lifestyle
behaviors?
Lily: that sounds pretty interesting. I am in…
Summary of the healthy aging quiz:
Lily had been found to be suffering from more than one chronic disorder. She mainly lives a
sedentary lifestyle with restricted cardio-respiratory activities. She has been found to have a BMI
of 37 and has addiction issues like smoking and drinking. She had suffered fall twice although
medical interventions were not required. She stated that she had moderate to severe unsteadiness
while she tries to mobilize. She sometimes eat healthy meals and rest of the time, she seeks for
take-away foods. However, she is cognitively active participating in many activities that

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stimulate and challenge mind like crosswords. She reads books and paints as well. Her families
and friends visit her more or less regularly and she enjoys good social support. She has people to
depend on. However, she is apathetic towards undertaking any challenging activities and
believes that she should rest nowadays in her old age. She also denies to be an optimistic person.