Adult Health IV: Reflection on the Older Adult

Throughout this semester, I have realized that many of my baseline view surrounding the older adult population were wrong. I have had many experiences with this population working as a CNA and also through most of my clinical rotations in nursing school. I have had both good and bad experiences with this population, but after taking this course I now feel like I am able to understand the population a bit more. I have always enjoyed working with the older adult population and will be continuing to work with them as an RN on the floor where I have accepted a job. I have always seen older adults individually, and understood that each older adult has different traits, personalities, and values. This course helped me to understand different priorities of care that I hadn’t thought of as applicable before. 

            We have covered many topics during Gerontology this semester and one of the most intriguing to me is sexuality. I realized some misconceptions I had about the older adult population, such as older adults were less interested in sex. I also wasn’t aware that STI education may be necessary in the older adult population and wasn’t something I had thought about before. I also thought polypharmacy was such an important topic to learn about in this course, because it is so common in the older adult population. I envision myself using the information in this course to promote holistic care and to never make assumptions. It is easy for us as nurses to assume that an older adult widowed patient doesn’t need sex education. This may not be the case and we would be providing the patient a disservice by not educating them properly on safe sex practices. I also will work to listen to my older adult patient, and meet their needs whether they are medical, emotional, or spiritual. I also will advocate for my patient who I notice are having a change in cognition, since this is not a common part of aging.

            One key take away I have learned from this course that will help me age healthily is that people typically hold their same personality, exercise, eating, and family patterns throughout their entire life. I want to live my whole life with the same bubbly personality I have now and with family and friends that I love. I also want to make sure I still continue to exercise as I age, and not let that be a barrier for me as an older adult. I thought of my relationships with the older adults in my life and realized that many of them do still live their lives relatively similarly to the way they did when they were my age with some adjustments. This made me realize I can either chose to live my life positively, or I can look at things negatively and never be truly satisfied. I want my legacy in life to be that I was always kind and helping others when I could. I want to make even the mundane tasks of life fun for the people around me, because life is better when you’re laughing with the people you love.