University Essay: Stages of Life and Age's Influence on Healthcare

This assignment is an essay exploring the impact of a patient's age and stage of life on the quality of healthcare received. The essay examines five life stages: childhood, adolescence, youth, middle age, and older age, highlighting how healthcare providers' attitudes and levels of care may vary across these stages. It argues that older adults often face misunderstandings and potentially receive less attentive care. The assignment includes an interview with a 60-year-old patient named Sara Conway who has osteoarthritis, discussing her experiences with healthcare staff, their attitudes, and the involvement of her family in her treatment. The interview reveals instances of both attentive and less considerate care, particularly concerning mobility assistance, and highlights the crucial role of family support in the patient's treatment and well-being. References are provided to support the analysis.

Running head: STAGES‐OF‐LIFE AND THE INFLUENCE OF AGE IN HEALTH CARE
STAGES‐OF‐LIFE AND THE INFLUENCE OF AGE IN HEALTH CARE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1STAGES‐OF‐LIFE AND THE INFLUENCE OF AGE IN HEALTH CARE
Part-I
This section will be exploring how the age of a person and the stages of life affect the
quality of medical care received by a patient, from the perspective of a patient.
There are mainly five stages of life that can be identified in the human. The stages of
life are differentiated according to one’s age. The first stage of life, that is childhood, requires
a close medical observation, since the immune system is still developing during the childhood
phase and the children often fall ill. The medical staffs are generally show a greater level of
concern and cooperativeness in providing that group of patient proper medical attention
(Grossman et al., 2017). The adolescents also receive the similar level of attention and care
from the healthcare staffs. The people, who are at the third stage of life, which is the youth,
are the age group that are less likely to develop a health condition resulting from a weaker
immune system. However they also require medical attention and the healthcare providers are
also cooperative and patient with this group (Quinn et al., 2015). The middle age also have
similar experiences in receiving medical care (Simpson, Simpson, & Dubno, 2016).
However, the older people or the people who are at the last stage of life are the people who
have to face the instances of misunderstandings the most. Many of the healthcare staffs are
reluctant to help these age group due to lack of consideration, even though they encounter the
healthcare problems the most (Allen, Hutchinson, Brown & Livingston, 2014).
Hence it can be concluded that the people who are at the last stage of life face the
most problems in receiving medical care compared to the people of the other stages of life.

2STAGES‐OF‐LIFE AND THE INFLUENCE OF AGE IN HEALTH CARE
Part-II
Transcript of the Interview:
Patient Name: Sara Conway; Patient age: 60; Disease Condition: Osteoarthritis;
Nurse: Hello. How are you today?
Sara: I am feeling better today. Thank You.
Nurse: I am going to ask you a few question regarding your experience here. Is that fine?
Sara: Sure.
Nurse: Do you feel that the healthcare staffs treat you differently for your age?
Sara: Yes. Some of them are very careful with me and treat me with delicate care attitude.
But some finds it irritating that I require help every time I wish to move around.
Nurse: Are the staffs show concerns with your well-being and your emotions?’
Sara: The nursing staffs, who help me with my medications and diet are far more careful and
considerable with my emotions and well-being. However, the staffs who are supposed to help
me into my wheel-chair do not like to converse with me.
Nurse: Do your family visit you often?
Sara: I only have a daughter, who is divorced and have a 5 year old son. Both of them visits
me twice in a week.
Nurse: Is your daughter involved in your treatment?
Sara: Yes. My daughter is paying for all my treatment expenses and she is also my main
caregiver at home.
Nurse: Okay. That will be all. Thank you. Have a nice day.

3STAGES‐OF‐LIFE AND THE INFLUENCE OF AGE IN HEALTH CARE
Sara: Same to you.

4STAGES‐OF‐LIFE AND THE INFLUENCE OF AGE IN HEALTH CARE
References:
Allen, J., Hutchinson, A. M., Brown, R., & Livingston, P. M. (2014). Quality care outcomes
following transitional care interventions for older people from hospital to home: a systematic
review. BMC health services research, 14(1), 346.
https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6963-14-346
Simpson, A. N., Simpson, K. N., & Dubno, J. R. (2016). Higher health care costs in middle-
aged US adults with hearing loss. JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery, 142(6), 607-
609. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/article-abstract/2507066
Quinn, G. P., Gonçalves, V., Sehovic, I., Bowman, M. L., & Reed, D. R. (2015). Quality of
life in adolescent and young adult cancer patients: a systematic review of the
literature. Patient related outcome measures, 6, 19.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4337625/
Grossman, M. R., Berkwitt, A. K., Osborn, R. R., Xu, Y., Esserman, D. A., Shapiro, E. D., &
Bizzarro, M. J. (2017). An initiative to improve the quality of care of infants with neonatal
abstinence syndrome. Pediatrics, 139(6), e20163360. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-
3360