Describe what your baseline views were related to Gerontology and working with older individuals? What has been your opinion and experience with this population?  Identify if you had any interest in working with older individuals when you become a registered nurse:

Prior to taking this Gerontology course, I had spent my summer working at a local nursing home. My initial views on gerontology were that it is an overlooked, and under-cared for area within the healthcare workforce. I worked in an environment where we were highly understaffed, and patients were not receiving the proper care that they needed. There were many nights where I had 20 patients on my assignment, and very little time to perform full care on my patients. I mostly worked on a dementia unit where nearly every patient was fully dependent on staff care. There is a lot of frustration on my end as working as a CNA in the environment that I was in. I can only imagine the amount of frustration that my patients must go through daily. They are not receiving the quality of care that they are paying for to live in this type of facility, and many of my patients live with daily depression for current state of their livelihood. Because of my previous experiences working in an emotionally and physically taxing environment, I was not originally interested in taking a gerontology course. I still wish not to work in a nursing home specific environment moving forward. However, I am open to working with our gerontological populations in other healthcare settings.

Considering the areas that we have discussed in Gerontology: Common Changes in Aging, Polypharmacy, Sexuality, End of Life issues, Elder Abuse, etc., has anything changed your view point on the needs of the older individual? How do you envision using the information learned in this course to reshape how you will approach working with older individuals:

I think the topic that resonated the most with me in this course was the elder abuse module. These were the areas that I have seen the most while working in the field. There were many times when I had heard stories on how families sell out patients from their home, so their only resort to living is within our nursing home facility. I originally did not think this was a common problem in the elder population. However, after learning about the various forms of elder abuse, I now realize that this is a real issue that happens right under our noses. It is saddening to know that there is a point where it can be too late for these patients. Even though we as nurses can report the abuse to authorities and request action be taken, it can be very difficult to get this money back to our patients. Therefore, many of them must permanently live in the nursing home against their will. I am going to use the information that I learned to keep both an eye and an ear out for potential signs of abuse. I remember hearing a coworker state how they have twice witnessed a patient’s family member forcing their confused mother to sign off large amounts of money to the child. However, they did not state whether they reported the incident. My takeaway from this course is that if I have any suspicion that there is something odd going on between a caretaker and an older adult, I will immediately report it. I will not fall to silence like my other coworkers may have felt that they needed to do. If there is a suspicion of abuse, it is our job as mandated reporters to create a report on the matter and potentially save someone from a dangerous situation.

What is one take-a-way that you have from this course that will cause you to think about changes in your own life that will lead to your own healthy aging? What connections were made to realize what you are doing and how you are living now could potentially impact you later in life (think of relationships, family, friends, social habits, hobbies, employment).  What do you want your legacy to be?

Another big takeaway that I will have as an overall lesson from this course is that as an older adult, I want to view the world with an open mind, and I hope others will have an open mind towards me and my philosophies as well. As a society, we tend to view down upon older adults as less than, and almost unhuman in comparison to the younger generations. My hopes are that as time goes on, we can break down those stereotypes to focus more on the fact that older adults are just like us, they just have more time and wisdom on their hands than we do. In fact, that should help us celebrate older generations more for the experiences and life advice that they might have to offer. A big connection that I made within this course was through creating a life book project. This was a wonderful experience where we were able to interview an older adult and ask them questions about all growth and development stages of their lifetime. The person that I interviewed showed me how there is no need to change yourself to appease to others. This individual has kept true to their own goals and beliefs, and states that they are completely fulfilled with the life that they have lived. I take this statement close to heart, and I feel that this is a way to avoid unnecessary pressures that can come with life. As I grow older, I want my legacy to be the ability to learn from my mistakes as I continue on with life, and always express kindness and gratitude to those who are meaningful to me.