Individual Assignment Option 1 – Gerontology Specialty

In the past few decades, the specialty of gerontological nursing has experienced profound growth. Along with the growth of the specialty, there has been a heightened awareness of the complexity of gerontological nursing, utilizing the nursing metaparadigm shown below. Investigate your own personal philosophy of older adult nursing, explore the following concepts:

Complete a timeline of significant strides taken in gerontological nursing.

Identify key points/achievements in our history.

Project the future gerontological nursing, including new opportunities for our profession.

Review your course text related to “challenges for the future.” Search online professional sites (Example: Coalition of Geriatric Nursing Organizations (CGNO) to find information addressing challenges and new roles faced by the nursing profession related to care needs of the older adult. Provide the Internet sites you utilized to gain information and respond to the following questions:

1.Have we already begun to address the needs and challenges? If so, what are some of the proposed solutions?

2.What other solutions do you propose?

 

 

Gerontology Specialty

Gerontology is a nursing practice that focuses on the health of older people. Gerontology and geriatric are two terms that are used interchangeably and they involve the nursing practice to help the elderly population based on their mental and physical health. The primary focus of geriatric and gerontology nurses is to help patients cope with the changes affecting the mental and physical health of the older population as well as advocating for programs that would help the patients stay independent and active. Gerontology nursing began in the 19th century in England and has taken many strides designed to improve the health profession (Theris & Kathleen, 2015). This has involved improvements in the nursing practice as well as the development of policies designed to improve the caregivers' and the patients’ lives. Also, gerontology nursing has incorporated improvements that have helped reshape the ancient and traditional elderly home environments which were considered unhealthy and unfit for human survival.

Gerontology nursing has improved over the years based on the innovativeness and educational practices designed to improve and elevate the nursing practice. The practice began with the professionalization of the nursing practice whereby, the first article was published in the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) on the care of the older people in 1906. AJN considered geriatric and gerontology as a possible specialty in a nursing practice designed to improve care to older people in 1925. In 1950, geriatric nursing books began to be published and gerontology became a specialty in the nursing profession (Theris & Kathleen, 2015). Various trends and strides followed suit which helped establish standards of practice in Geriatric nursing. Others included; the certification of the nursing practice; renaming of geriatric division to gerontology nursing practice in 1976; the funding of the first gerontology nursing in 1977; the  publication of first gerontology nursing articles in 1980; the change in leadership of gerontology nursing in 1983 where Doreen Norton was the first chair of the nursing practice group; the certification of gerontology nursing as a nursing specialty in 1989; the formation of the Hartford Coalition of Geriatric Nursing Association in 2001; the funding of new Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence (CGNE) to become the ninth institution in 2008; and certification of Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner and Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner through ANCC (Theris & Kathleen, 2015). These improvements have been made to accommodate the changes required to enhance the delivery of high-quality care to elderly people in the community. However, there is a need to improve geriatric and gerontology specialty as a way of enhancing quality improvement and delivery of high-quality care to the elderly population.

Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing has been the backbone for the development and improvement of the nursing practice. The Hartford Foundation has managed to influence change by shaping the quality of the country’s health care for older people. The institution has implemented initiatives that have promoted geriatric nursing quality to the nursing profession and the whole healthcare community. These initiatives have led to the improvement of the healthcare system to deliver high-quality care to older populations. For example, the Hartford Foundation has helped shape the nursing profession, research, education, faculty development, doctoral scholarships, policies, and gerontology nursing improvement projects. Also, gerontology nursing has managed to influence the nursing practice by improving the care for the elderly people by implementing the Nurse Competence in Aging (NCA) which is an attribute designed to involve ANA and American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) in supporting community older population’s health (Beverly & Harden, 2020). Hartford Foundation has further been involved in achievements such as the establishment of the ANA Scope and Standards of Gerontology Nursing practice. These scope and standards have helped govern the role played by nurses in the field of geriatric nursing.

Moreover, gerontology nursing has made various achievements that have influenced the field of nursing. For example, the gerontology nursing practice has collaborated with clinical partners, researchers, clinical sites, and laboratories to form partnerships that are deemed to influence the clinical practice of older patients. This has led to the formulation of goals and objectives that have been effective to advance the science of gerontology care. For instance, the practice has helped shape the research and clinical operations focused on chronic disease management, end-of-life, and palliative care, dementia care, and aging well initiatives. The future of gerontology nursing practice is connected to the research developments and clinical operations as well as the adoption and implementation of innovation and technology in aging nursing (Britten et al., 2018). The future of the nursing practice will be influenced by the desire to involve communities’ health promotion with a focus on older people to accommodate for the desired changes in promoting the health of the communities. There will be a need for funding and collaboration of partners in geriatric and gerontology nursing practice stakeholders in the healthcare system to improve the delivery of high-quality care services. These will be attained based on the focus on improving the staffing patterns, evaluation of the influence of the culture, diversity, and ethnicity in aging practice, understanding of the health disparities, enhancement of successful aging and wellness programs, educate the public on retirement decisions, and involvement of intergenerational caregiving practices.

Gerontology Nursing is a profession like any other that can be affected by challenges and issues interfering with its success. Nurses and health professions working as geriatrics are facing challenges that affect their working environments. For example, the current population is living longer with high life expectancy which has created an influx in the geriatric nursing practice. This has caused a shortage of nurses in the clinical practice which is a challenge to the entire healthcare system (Bourbonnais et al., 2020). This has been improved by introducing many types of nursing homes that cater to the increased rates of elderly patients. Also, due to the increased number of elderly patients in medical institutions, there have been cases of neglect and abuse in geriatric patients and medical institutions. Serving the vulnerable population of elderly patients is becoming complex which has led to issues of neglect and abuse to the patients whereby, some geriatric nurses have forgotten their moral and ethical standards in providing care to older patients.

The Coalition of Geriatric Nursing Organizations have however introduced measures that would help overcome the challenges of neglect and abuse by administering enough nurses and staff in the medical facilities. Geriatric patients have claimed that they struggle with self-care and the loss of independence as they tend to rely on instructions given by health professionals (Harris et al., 2021). Some of the patients are dealing with issues that require support in basic activities such as bathing, dressing, and feeding. Patient education and emotional care have been introduced to cater to the issues of self-care and loss of independence in nursing homes for the elderly. The increased rates of dementia and memory loss have led to confusion and delay of functions in nursing homes for the elderly. Patients and geriatric nurses are crashing during the delivery of care which has affected the quality of care offered to the patients. The Coalition of Geriatric Nursing Organization has created platforms that would help overcome the challenge by advocating for a personal touch and emotional support to the patients, improve the understanding of the patients’ needs, incorporation of good communication skills, and close observation to enhance interaction with the patients. These challenges can also be improved by enhancing effective nursing training, intensive geriatric nursing research for changing issues, enhanced knowledge, and clinical reasoning, establish flexible clinical programs, and advocate for continued learning (Schapmire et al., 2018). The primary objective is to improve and deliver high-quality care to geriatric patients in the healthcare system and collaboration within the nursing homes would help overcome the challenges and enhance patient satisfaction.

Outline

Topic: Gerontology Specialty

Thesis statement: Gerontology is a nursing practice that focuses on the health of older people. Gerontology and geriatric are two terms that are used interchangeably and they involve the nursing practice to help the elderly population based on their mental and physical health. The primary focus of geriatric and gerontology nurses is to help patients cope with the changes affecting the mental and physical health of the older population as well as advocating for programs that would help the patients stay independent and active.

1. A timeline of significant strides taken in gerontology nursing
2. Key points and achievements in gerontology nursing history
3. The future gerontology nursing and new opportunities for the profession
4. Challenges for the future of gerontology nursing practice
5. How the challenges have been addressed
6. Other proposed solutions to the challenges
7. References