Healthcare Discussion: Successful Aging, Opportunities, and Barriers

This discussion post addresses the concept of successful aging and the role of nurses in promoting it. The author emphasizes the importance of disease prevention and management, maintaining mental and physical health, and encouraging healthy lifestyle choices such as proper diet, exercise, and social interaction. The post highlights leadership opportunities for nurses in elderly care, emphasizing the need for critical thinking and communication skills. It also acknowledges barriers to successful aging, including lack of housing, supportive policies, and resources. The author advocates for providing the elderly with access to basic needs to improve their quality of life. References from recent studies support the discussion's key points, offering a comprehensive overview of successful aging strategies and challenges.

Discussion
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Discussion (exercise 2.2 module 2)
Promotion of successful aging
Successful aging is meant to improve the quality of life for the aging population. Nurses
have the responsibility to mitigate how a disease progresses in the life of the elderly can be
managed. In this case, as a nurse, I have the responsibility to prevent and manage disease,
maintaining a healthy mental function and also ensuring that the elderly maintain a good physical
function. For instance, I will recommend that the elderly to eat the right diet and exercise a lot to
improve their quality of life. In this case, I will encourage the elderly to eat healthy, avoid
tobacco and alcohol, and to maintain an optimum weight through exercise. In addition, I will
educate them on how to manage stress, have positivity in life, good social interaction, and
maintain a spiritual life (Moffitt, Belsky, Danese, Poulton & Caspi, 2017). By doing so, one
could be said to have aged successfully. Thus, for one to age successfully, they must free from
disability and disease, have high cognitive and physical function and also a continued
participation in productive and social activities. , Further, the elderly are said to be successfully
aging when they use their mental and physical resources to cover up their limitation. Most of the
old people in our communities are not allowed to age successfully as they continue caring out
hard activities that lead them to develop diseases that lead to their demise. Therefore, as a nurse,
I will encourage the people around the elderly people to support them in all ways possible in
order to ensure that they age successfully (Lanna, Escors, Gilroy & Akbar, 2017).
Opportunities offered by an ageing generation
Leadership is one of the main opportunity that the ageing population offers nurses. The nursing
education emphasizes on leadership, critical thinking, and communication. As this abilities are

vital in all settings, they are specifically imperative when dealing with the older people. Nurses
serve as healthcare providers for older patients with diverse chronic problems that do not need
physical intervention but require nurses to assume the role of patient care treatment and
planning. In addition, through leadership, nurses are able to explain clearly to the family
members the treatment plans and also to addressing the concerns of caregivers and the patient
(Solfrizzi, Scafato, Sardone & Baldereschi, 2017).
Barriers
However, nurses faces major challenges in trying to improve the quality of life for the
ageing population. For instance, lack of proper housing that can accommodate the elderly
throughout their life. In addition, the lack of policies that support the old in the community pose
a major challenge to the nurses. There is also the lack of resource which can be used to improve
the elder’s lifestyle. In that case most of the needs of the elderly cannot be met. Therefore, it is
important for the elderly to be provided with the opportunity to access the basic needs in order to
improve their quality of life (Baar, Brandt, Bourgeois & Pluijm, 2017).

References
Baar, M. P., Brandt, R. M., Bourgeois, B. R., & van der Pluijm, I. (2017). Targeted apoptosis of
senescent cells restores tissue homeostasis in response to chemotoxicity and aging. Cell,
169(1), 132-147.
Solfrizzi, V., Scafato, Sardone, R.,.&Baldereschi, M. (2017). Additive Role of a Potentially
Reversible Cognitive Frailty Model and Inflammatory State on the Risk of Disability:
The Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
Lanna, Escors, D., Gilroy, D. W., ...& Akbar, A. N. (2017). A sestrin-dependent Erk-Jnk-p38
MAPK activation complex inhibits immunity during aging. Nat. Immunol., 18, 354-363.
Moffitt, T. E., Belsky, D. W., Danese, A., Poulton, R., &Caspi, A. (2017). The longitudinal study
of aging in human young adults: knowledge gaps and research agenda. The Journals of
Gerontology: Series A, 72(2), 210-215.