The Care For The Elderly
RCHS Capstone Experience By: Jahavier Vernon
Thesis
Nurses are key parts in this situation. Nurses can make the elderly feel valuable and appreciated, and nurses are in the best position to identify and prevent abuse of the elderly.
Letter of Intent
Letter of intent
Jahavier Vernon
129 Jay Lane
Reidsville NC, 27320
September 25,2015
Advisory Board
Rockingham County High School
180 High School Rd.
Wentworth NC, 27320
Dear Advisory Board:
The topic of my capstone experience is to prove to the elderly that they mean something in this world and they are not alone even when they are in a nursing home. I choose this topic because I have a special place in my heart for the elderly.
For my research paper I will be focusing on the dangers in nursing homes and what they need to provide to the elderly. I hope to evaluate the best nursing homes and identity what makes them great.
For my project I'm going to read to the elderly and offer them a simple, pleasant conversation. I just want to show them I care how they are, especially if they don't have a family. I intend to volunteer at nursing homes and hospice. This will be very challenging for me because of how sad I may feel about how lonely the elderly may feel. My expert is Holly Mull .
I understand that plagiarism and the act of it has tremendous consequences if plagiarism is found in my paper. I believe that it is important to do your best and put your own thoughts because it shows who you are.
Sincerely,
Jahavier Vernon
15 Hour Documentation
september 11- 3 hours of walking around making sure everyone knows who i am and talking to them, so they get to know me
september 12- 2 hour checking on people to make sure they are okay and dont need anything and socialising with them
september 18- 2 hours giving patients baths and changing beds
september 26- 3 hours checking the patient's blood pressure and making sure they have ate and asking what they have ate and checking their body for any strange marks ( bedsores)
october 9- 1 hour walking patients and wheeling them around
october 24- 1 hour checking on people to make sure they are okay and dont need anything
November 7- 2 hours giving patients baths and changing beds
November 13- 2 hour doing patients laundry and cleaning after them
November 14- 2 hours changing beds and feeding patientsResearch Paper
Jahavier Vernon
English 4
Mrs. Wilson
November 13, 2015
The Care for the Elderly
Thesis: Nurses are key parts in this situation. Nurses can make the elderly feel valuable and appreciated, and nurses are in the best position to identify and prevent abuse of the elderly.
Background Information: The elderly are sensitive and just want someone to treat them with respect and care as if the elderly was family. How many elderly are in America. How many are in nursing homes.
The responsibility of the community
The role of nurses
Care
Value
Prevent/ Report abuse
Respect
The Care For The Elderly
It is important to take care of the older population. The American population of elderly people tend to live longer lives, and they are in need of someone to take care of them in their older age. The elderly are weak and are not able to take on the tasks that they could have done many years ago. Knowing that the nurses and citizens are young and able, and have not gone through that stage of life yet, they could help the elderly. Nurses are the main people that should care for the elderly because when they get older they would want someone to care for them. The elders have contributed to their communities, and when they are older, and it is time for their community to care for them. Nurses are key parts in this situation. Nurses can make the elderly feel valuable and appreciated, and nurses are in the best position to identify and prevent abuse of the elderly.
America's population has grown largely over the number of years. On average about twenty eight percent of the elderly are living alone, and fourth five percent of the elderly are living in a nursing home. Also, sixty four percent of the elderly live with someone that is there to take care of them or look after them, so nothing happens or in case something does happen someone will already be there to call for help (Hopkins). According to Census gov website, “between 2012 and 2050, the United States will experience considerable growth in its older population”(Ortman). Another statistic that shows how many elderly will be in the country within thirty five years “In 2050, the population aged 65 and over is projected to be 83.7 million, almost double its estimated population of 43.1 million in 2012” (Ortman). These numbers illustrate that people are living longer, and America needs to be able to care for them. It is important to care for the elderly in so many ways. Some of the elders may have lived a hard life and been through the toughest times. That elderly that walked by in the hallway may have depression or not able to handle their emotions and can not handle their physical illnesses alone. Just because citizens are not close to the elderly do not mean Americans should not show them respect that they need and deserve.
The elderly do not like to ask people, nurses, or anyone for help. The elderly feel like they are being a burden on people when they take the time out of someone else's day so that person they asked for help can help the elderly. When the elderly go in a nursing home, and they do not have family to come visit them, the elderly feel like they are bothering the nurses there because the elderly are lonely and just want someone to talk to, someone to share their feeling with. Some nurses at the nursing home will disrespect the elderly when the nurse has to do multiple things for the elderly. Some nurses may get an attitude, like raise their voice or roll their eyes. ABC news says, “ I think that they've completely internalised this message that they're a burden. I see evidence of this every day on my hospital ward. Patients, elderly patients apologise for being sick, for being in hospital, for taking up a hospital bed that should be apparently for somebody else” (Scales). ABC news also included “ There's a lot of patients, but recently I looked after an elderly gentleman who said that he wanted to die and that he didn't want to be in hospital and that he was a nuisance and when I sat down and talked to him, it turned out that his wife had recently died, his dog that was his remaining companion had died and he felt that he had no place in society anymore and that he was a burden”(Scales). No elderly, or anyone for that matter, should feel like this. This is why the nurses should change their ways and make the elderly feel more important and show that they care. A nurse should have talked to this elderly man and try to take all the negativity this man had in his head, thinking how life would be better if he was not here on earth.
Elderly people are easily abused, and mistreated. According to the web site Talking Point there is “200 cases of elderly abuse a year” (Singapore). Talking Point said “ Older victims are not aware of the resources out in the world nowadays and they do not know what to do” (Singapore). Talking Point also said, “There is no blood test you can do, there is no scan that would say ‘Oh this is abuse’. And a lot of the time, there’s no evidence” (Singapore). Talking Point had a good statement about there is not a blood test you can do about proving abuse. The nursing homes should have either cameras everywhere or the nurses should wear a little camera on them. The employees should not have to worry about nudes of elderly for invading privacy. When the nurses give the elderly a bath, they see them nude. That way when nursing homes have cameras everywhere, Employees have all angles and can see everything. the officers and employees can see what really happens. It will not be the game “she said, he said.” No one should be able to view the cameras unless they have a witness with them like a policeman or employee, that way the nursing home will know no one messed with the cameras and nothing got deleted and there will be evidence to prove what really happened.
Nurses need to make the elder feel welcome and not make them feel like they are being a burden on the nurses or in the way of the nurses. When the nurses go in to care for the elderly, they can have a simple conversation with them by asking how their day is going and just get to know them better. A simple conversation can take the negativity out of their head and change their day around. ABC news said a gentleman left the hospital and the nurse called the man who left to talk to him and said, “I called him a couple of weeks after he left hospital, given that he had said he never wanted to come back to hospital, just to try and work out a plan for him and he said to me that he says silly things when he's sick. Of course he wants to come back to hospital and that he was very, very happy because he'd managed to get another dog, go back to his part-time work” (Scales). The way this nurse handled this situation was respectful. She made the old man feel welcome and greatly appreciated. She showed him that he was not bothering her or being a burden on him. This is how all nurses should feel, treat, and care for the elders instead of abusing them because the nurses are all most elders have. When America mistreat an elderly, they are going to think all nurses are the same and never want to ask for help every again.
The elderly just need love, attention, care and affection. No one should ever disrespect, beat, mistreat, and abuse the elderly. Just because a nuses is having a bad day does not mean he/ she can take it out on the elderly being cared for. The elderly need neighbors, nurses and anyone willing to help in a caring manner now more than ever since they are weak and more prone to being sick or hurt. The elderly can not do anything by themselves and just need someone to be there for them. Someone that is going to take good care of them and not let them get hurt or mistreat them. For nursing homes the nurses should have a sign in and out sheet for visitors. That way they know who is there and who is in what room and their relationship with that elderly they are visiting. It will also tell who is a regular and who is just stopping by. Not all of the elders have family, or friends that they can talk to or someone that will just stop by and see how they are doing and if they need some assistance. Some elders do not have someone to celebrate special days with, like birthdays or Christmas. The nurses should take that responsibility and do something for the elderly they are caring for. All nurses should get together and celebrate with all the elderly. The elders do not like to be cooped up in the room all the time or laying in the bed all the time maybe the nurses should take them outside so the elders can get some fresh air and just look up at the sky and day dream. At least they can get some enjoyment out of being outside and watching the young kids playing outside with their parents or just watching America have a good time. For the elders birthday, they can get them a little something just to show that the nurses care and are thinking about them. It may make the elder happy and make his or her day brighter.
Work Cited
Work Cited
"Abuse of the Elderly: Why Some Are Reluctant to Speak up." Channel NewsAsia. N.p., n.d. Web.
26 Oct. 2015.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/abuse-of-the-elderly-why/2020396.ht
"An Aging Nation: The Older Population in the United States." An Aging Nation: The Older Population in the United States. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.
http://www.census.gov/library/publications/2014/demo/p25-1140.html
Ortman, Jennifer M. "The Older Population of the United States." Journal of Gerontology 14.2
(1959): 230-31. An Aging Nation: The Older Population in the United States. Jennifer M.
Ortman, Victoria A. Velkoff, and Howard Hogan, May 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
https://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p25-1140.pdf
"Singapore." Channel NewsAsia. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore
Scales, Leigh. "Elderly 'have Internalised' Message They're a Burden on Society, Says Physician
Karen Hitchcock." Elderly 'have Internalised' Message They're a Burden on Society.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4196703.htm
Blogs
Clarifying the Learning Stretch:
This experience has been a challenge for me, with working with the elderly and them not knowing who I am and what my personality is like. They do not know how to come on to me or act around me. They will just assume I am like all the other snobby, no good teenager that disrespect the elderly. When they come on to me with an attitude I just have to be nice to them and show them that I care and that I am just here to show them love and respect. The experience that I had was my parents are divorced and I still look at the fact my step parent parents are my grandparents, but they treat me different than their other grand kids. I still have to respect them because I was always taught to respect the elderly. This topic is so important to me because I have seen the look on my great grandma's face when she was in the hospice care when I was leaving because she wouldn't have anyone to talk to and she was going to be all alone and no one was going to be there for her without her having to wait until that nurse had time for her. I don't want anyone to ever have to go through that. The skills that I learned from this experience is that no matter what nurses are doing when an elderly needs help drop what's going on and help them. They do not have much freedom being there and by just asking them what pajamas they would like to wear after giving them a bath makes them feel good. It makes them feel like someone actually cares what they want and their opinion.
Problems and Solutions:
The problems I encountered while trying to complete my project is the hours of my experts work schedule on the weekends she works from 3 in the afternoon to 3 in the morning. Fridays and Saturdays was no problem because I didn't have school but on Sunday. I was tired and I have school the next day. I did all my hours on Friday and Saturday. Another problem I encountered is the elderly that I worked with had something major wrong with them. They either had short term memory loss or they were just crazy. This one lady that me and my expert was helping was loopy, after giving her a bath we walked out so she could get dressed because she could dress herself. When we walked back in my expect had left her jacket in there and the elderly women had it on. When we asked her what she was wearing she said it was her new jacket. My expert didn't want to fight her for it so she just agreed with her and waited until she went to sleep, when she went to bed we took it off of her. If I could start my RCH capstone experience over again I would have started working on my hours over the summer and document everything I did. Having to do all this stuff is really stressful especially on top of other classes. I did not get to work on this in class everyday so I had to do some at home. I would have just started on everything a bit sooner that way I would not have so much to do. My teacher help me out a lot with the capstone experience because she made date when stuff was due that way I was actually doing stuff and I was not waiting till the last minute to do it.
Expert Collaboration:
How I selected my expect is I have known her for a while and she has always wanted to be a nurse of some kind and she has working with the elderly for years. With the experience that she has I thought she would be the best expert for me. With this topic I learned that nurse need to watch what they say and make sure the nurses bite their tongue so they don’t say something that will get them fired or in trouble. I also learned that as a nurse dealing with real people and life scenarios can't go around telling people business about someone there. What has been seen and deal with is confidential. I learned a lot from my expert she has showed me the things I need to work on before I enter this field, that way I don't get in trouble and she has showed me how to deal with complications without having a big battle and something that takes 5 minutes to deal with last 3 hours. She has been a wonderful expert. My expert helped me with my RCH Capstone Experience by me taking her time at work and letting me work with her and helping the elderly. She worked with me when I needed help addressing an elderly and taught me the things I need to work on to become more responsible for the job.
Reflective Evaluation:
What I learned about myself during this Capstone Experience is that I need to watch more on my attitude about how people see me. I do things out of habit and not knowing how people take it. Holly told me that my tone sometimes seem like i'm aggravated or that I don't want to help that person and i'm just frustrated with them and that's not at all how I mean to come on. I hope I can work on this and in the future I will be ready for the real thing and be as good as Holly. Something good that I see about myself in this experience was that I really like the elderly. They really make me happy and they know how to cheer me up and change my day, make it do a whole 360. How I will use what I gained from this project is next semester i'm in nursing fundamentals and I will already have a rundown on what I will be doing and what to expect especially when we go to clinical's. Clinical's is when we go to a nursing home and we work with the elderly who can't bathe himself or feed themselves and we have to do. For this class we have to have so many hours to get credit for it. From this class at the end of all of it I will take a test for my CNA. I will also get to us this in the future because when I graduate I will have my CNA’S and I'm granted a job. I'm hoping it will be at a nursing home or hospital that way I will be able to care and treat the elderly. This also goes along with what was most valuable and accomplished in this experiment. That's another reason why I chose Holly as my expert.