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Assignment 1: Aging and Bias

Age and other biases are societal stereotypes and discriminations that could hinder a nurse from
effectively providing care. These stereotypes could be explicit or implicit (Norouzinia et al.,
2015). The essay examines how age influences health care plans and service provision.
How does a person’s difference in age, culture, race, gender, and living situation impact
your comfort as a nurse in communicating with them?
Nurse-patient communication is an important factor in the realization of positive patient
outcomes. However, that is not always as several factors, including stereotypes, could hamper
the ability of the nurse to provide adequate care. For example, some nurses could have difficulty
communicating with patients with a huge age difference. When dealing with older patients,
nurses reported difficulty knowing what to say and how to respond appropriately to their queries
(Kwame & Petrucka, 2021). Similar communication challenges could be seen when the nurse
serves a patient of a different culture, race, gender, or living situation. These observations were
supported by studies that showed that gender, cultural, and language differences served as
communication barriers between the nurse and the patient. The differences served as a major
cause of ineffective communication. According to Norouzinia et al. (2015), nurses are important
in delivering health services and strong healthcare systems. Nurses must effectively
communicate with people from different cultures, communities, and ages to enhance patient
outcomes.
Nurse-patient communication is essential in communicating interventions, treatments, and
prescriptions to patients. It helps with diagnosis communication, thus eliminating misinformation
issues that could hinder the delivery of essential services. However, it is sometimes challenging
to master effective communication skills that are effective for all patients (Kwame & Petrucka,
2021). Nurses should be emotionally intelligent and culturally competent in their
communication. Nurses must learn to speak to people from different cultural, social, and
demographic backgrounds. Regardless of the differences, nurses should always maintain
professionalism in their communication. Poor communication between the patient and nurses
could result in poor patient outcomes. Some negative patient outcomes associated with poor
nurse-patient communication include low compliance with the treatment procedures, low
satisfaction, and inefficient use of resources. Good nurse-patient communication can improve
treatment adherence and awareness.
Differences in the ages of the nurses and patients result in poor communication and confusion.
Older patients thought younger nurses made poor decisions about their health. Age differences
imply different perceptions regarding healthcare. As such, the nurse and patient may be unable to
communicate due to embedded perceptions. Poor communication between the patient and nurse
could result from the different expectations between the two groups. Norouzinia et al. (2015)
showed that younger patients were more likely to be dissatisfied due to their lack of familiarity
with care. Older patients were more likely to accept inadequacies. These factors highlight the
differences in communication expectations due to age and other differences.
While growing up, how were OAs (older adults) treated in your family, culture,
community, and society (identity the year range)?
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Aging is a challenging issue for many families and communities in general. Older people (above
60 years) deserve special treatment as they are vulnerable to different ailments or conditions.
Living with someone 66 years old, people, including family members, tended to treat her
differently. She was discouraged from undertaking her chores or autonomously going to the
store. While there were no symptoms of physical or mental decline, culturally, we believed that
he was in some kind of decline and thus was rarely consulted on many issues. One could see that
she was feeling worthless.
Nevertheless, the family members still showed her undying love and respect. The only area
where the participation was limited was on issues requiring active engagement, individual
attainment, and responsibility for one's actions. In some cases, she would shift out of active
engagement; thus, she needed people around her as she could be a danger to herself.
From experience, older adults are highly respected people in society. In my family, the elderly
grandmother was respected and admired by everyone for her wisdom and experience. However,
recent changes in societies' economic, social, and cultural landscape have changed how people
perceive aging. Older adults suffer reduced status than in the past. According to Nelson (2005),
older adults are increasingly being marginalized, disrespected, and disregarded due to the
growing sense of individualism and people wanting to stay young for long periods. Older adults
no longer live at home with their loved ones in some families. Instead, they are sent to elderly
care homes where they spend the rest of their lives with total strangers. They spend the later
stages of their lives lonely and feeling worthless. Thus, people need to improve how they interact
with the elderly and ensure that they live a happy life to the end.
In general society, the people and mass media continue to marginalize and devalue the elderly.
The mass media considerably influences people's values, perceptions, and beliefs. Therefore, the
media can be blamed for the common status that people have towards the elderly such as being
regarded as incompetent and of low status. The media regard these people as senile, unattractive,
and weak. In an increasingly secular, materialistic, and individualistic society, the negative
perceptions and attitudes towards the elderly and aging have become more negative. Monahan et
al. (2020) showed that the trend would continue as long as mass media consider aging something
people should fear and avoid. Therefore, it is important for people, especially the media, to
promote positive attitudes towards older adults.
Discuss what aging biases you have witnessed or experienced, and describe how these issues
have impacted your current nursing practice.
Ageism or aging biases include discrimination or stereotypes that people have against older
people or aging in general. These stereotypes are often ingrained in people's culture, thus
shrouding their thinking and how they treat the elderly, even in their practice. While many
healthcare organizations have inclusion, equity, and diversity protocols, such protocols often
focus on gender biases and racism (Kagan & Melendez‐Torres, 2015). Few healthcare
organizations seek to tackle ageism. Some examples of ageism in my current nursing practice
include refusal to hire people who have passed a certain age, asking for people's age during job
interviews even when age is irrelevant to the job, enacting organization policies that unfairly
privilege some people due to their age and viewing older people as less productive and out of
place. These age biases could make targeted people, especially the elderly feel worthless. They
could feel lonely and isolated in society.
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Additionally, we have seen many nurses and healthcare professionals show biases against older
adults. These biases are common in the manner they view older patients. Some nurses also have
self-aging anxiety that influences how they interact with other nurses and older patients. As such,
Kagan and Melendez‐Torres (2015) showed that age biases were important contributors to the
low quality of treatment and services that elderly patients receive. These studies showed that
nurses had inaccurate perceptions of the aging process. Nurses expressed the highest levels of
aging anxiety among healthcare professionals and would likely assign low status to geriatric
nursing. Clendon and Walker (2016) showed that nurses had negative attitudes toward older
patients, adversely impacting their communication and patient satisfaction.
Age-related biases impact my ability to offer adequate, effective care in several ways. For
instance, these biases can make older patients uncomfortable receiving care from a younger
nurse. They would prefer to have a nurse with similar experiences. Therefore, the aging nurse
workforce can help address some problems when dealing with aging or elderly patients (Clendon
& Walker, 2016). There is a low level of patient satisfaction when they are cared for by younger
nurses. The older patients could feel discomfort, thus lowering their care quality perceptions.
While older nurses could be helpful for older patients, we have experience discrimination against
them when it comes to working with younger patients. Younger patients assume that the older
patient is not physically strong and cannot deliver on functions that require bed or wheelchair
assistance. These experiences mean that younger and older patients experience different levels of
discrimination.
Create a community education plan to address biases towards older adults.
Community education is important in dealing with aging within the healthcare sector.
Community education should help people understand the inevitability of aging and enhance their
understanding of the entire life course of a person. In this regard, the healthcare systems should
invest in teaching the community about the aging process. The aging process includes normal
changes as people become older. Learning about the aging process will help understand older
adults' specific needs and experiences and how to address them (Lytle & Levy, 2019). The
community education curriculum should also enhance awareness of various aging-related issues.
These lessons should seek to debunk the existing myths and stereotypes, such as the
physiological and psychological challenges of becoming old. The education will help minimize
the segregation of older people and improve nurses' attitudes and perceptions toward these
society members.
The community education plan should include seminars and workshops. Healthcare and
community organizations should organize and facilitate seminars to address older patients' needs
and ensure that they access appropriate care. These seminars and workshops should challenge
families, work colleagues, and children to treat older adults as individuals. In addition, healthcare
organizations should set aside a sufficient budget to facilitate workshops for nurses to learn
communication and build relationships with older patients. They should seek to cultivate
relationships between young and older people. The awareness creation would improve the
engagement between nurses and older patients within the hospital and home settings (Dong et al.,
2011). It will ensure that the nurses understand what these patients need and treat them as
autonomous individuals with physical, mental, and intellectual capabilities to make decisions
concerning their life.
Conclusion
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Older adults face many complex problems in society. One of the major challenges is the issue of
ageism or age biases. These biases impact the quality of care they receive as there is poor
communication between them and nurses. Therefore, community education can help narrow the
gap in care for older adults.
References

Kwame, A., & Petrucka, P. M. (2021). A literature-based study of patient-centered care and

communication in nurse-patient interactions: Barriers, facilitators, and the way forward. BMC

Nursing, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-021-00684-2

Norouzinia, R., Aghabarari, M., Shiri, M., Karimi, M., & Samami, E. (2015). Communication barriers

perceived by nurses and patients. Global Journal of Health Science, 8(6),

65. https://doi.org/10.5539/gjhs.v8n6p65

Clendon, J., & Walker, L. (2016). The juxtaposition of aging and nursing: the challenges and
enablers of continuing to work in the latter stages of a nursing career. Journal of advanced
nursing, 72(5), 1065–1074.
Dong, X., Chang, E. S., Wong, E., & Simon, M. (2011). Working with culture: lessons learned
from a community-engaged project in a Chinese aging population. Aging Health, 7(4), 529-537.
Kagan, S. H., & Melendez‐Torres, G. J. (2015). Ageism in nursing. Journal of Nursing
Management, 23(5), 644-650.
Lytle, A., & Levy, S. R. (2019). Reducing ageism: Education about aging and extended contact
with older adults. The Gerontologist, 59(3), 580-588.
Monahan, C., Macdonald, J., Lytle, A., Apriceno, M., & Levy, S. R. (2020). COVID-19 and ageism: How
positive and negative responses impact older adults and society. American Psychologist, 75(7), 887.

Nelson, T. D. (2005). Ageism: Prejudice against our feared future self. Journal of social issues, 61(2), 207–
221.