The process of interviewing the older adult should be undertaken carefully. The older and aging adult groups should be critically assessed, in order to come up with the necessary materials to support them. They are an important facet of interest in our population. Aging and aged adults’ life is critical and therefore it requires proper monitoring and evaluation. Various basic support initiatives should be launched in order to cater for the needs of the aged adults. Contributions towards the aged adult services can take the forms of; monetary stipend, health checkups, nutritional and dietetics aid, psychological counselling among other forms. Therefore, the future of these societal groups rests in the hands of the stakeholder agencies.
The interview I had with the older adult enabled me to critically evaluate the challenges the aged come across in their life. I began with an open ended question as follows;
Nurse: how are you doing?
Old man: Am doing good
Nurse: What is your age now?
Old man: Am now turning 97 years
Nurse: Wow that is great
Nurse: how was your childhood? Did your childhood affect the life you are living now?
Old man: My childhood was not like todays because of improved technology. There are also new eating habits nowadays. All these changes have both positive and negative effects. For instance introduction of new food stuffs have accelerated the outcome of many diseases including high blood pressure.
Nurse: Now that is good explanation. Am from nursing department and am here with you to know how your health is at this age?
Old man: I think am okay and how do you deal with angry patient when it comes to their treatment?
Nurse: As you have said, most patients do not normally have good moods due to the sickness and that is normal for them. Now what I do is that I just listen to them and give them a chance to voice their concerns and frustrations. I then express my hope that I can help them. This enables the patients to change their moods.
Old man: That is good; I can see your qualifications as far as your area of specialization is concerned. Now I have a question about the high blood pressure as it has been an issue to old people. How do you handle that?
Nurse: As a nurse, we are improving hypertension control through monitoring as well as measuring it. We are also doing patient education that has become most effective strategy for hypertension control. Our role as far as hypertension is concerned is to provide care to the patient, detection as well as referral and we finally follow up the conditions of the patients.
Old man: I have one of the patients of high blood pressure, how long can I live?
Nurse: Through the effective care models on hypertension you can live a good life. We are also leading clinics and community based research aimed at improving the hypertension gap. Therefore through all these, you are advised on how to live a good life even if you are a patient. You are also advised on the type of food that you are to take for instance you should reduce your intake of fats, sodium and alcohol. You are also advised to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables.
Teachings of the interview
Due to the fact that old people are now suffering from hypertension, there are many and different organizations advocating for the control of hypertension. Some of the organizations which facilitate some support for the aged population include; the government and its department’s agencies, non-governmental organizations, compassionate movements, religious groups, adult education agencies. Society should make sure that the welfare of the aged is upgraded. The process of enhancing welfare of the aged and the aging adults should be streamlined by the aforementioned agencies. All this efforts should be geared towards achieving a higher standard of welfare. The gross welfare of a nation depends on the welfare of its people. Therefore, a nation which embarks on upgrading the welfare of its people consequently gains by achieving a higher level of economic development. This is because, economic development is a multidimensional discipline. It encompasses: gross domestic product, per capita income, education, health, religion, culture, economic growth, and societal welfare. This is just to mention but a few. This paper aims to discuss the events that transpired during an encounter with an elderly couple. The events were demarcated into two portions; that is, both an interview and a teaching session. This paper will discuss the interview session. It will come up with the elder couple’s view of aging, health concerns and wellbeing. On the other hand, the paper will also analyze the teaching session. It will examine the various topics taught which include; safety and health services to the elderly.
The interview process found that the elderly face life experience of varied nature. I interviewed the couple on the experience deserving help and aged care in their daily encounters. The need for care, as far as the elderly are concerned was portrayed as a balance between relief and sorrow. The study findings indicate that, the elderly face a lot caveats in their struggle to accommodate control and maintain connectedness. Furthermore, other experiences encompass the struggle to manage current events in their environment, as well as their anticipation and anxiety concerning their future life. In addition, the interviewed discovers that, the elderly are confronted by the challenge of coping up with the immediate environment or live events. Analysis of the interview reflects the fact that the elderly face difficulties in their bid to hide vulnerability in order to be accommodated by the changing environment. They attempt to maintain inner calm in an exposed event. Therefore, the majority of experiences were found to revolve around the basic settings of the environment. On assumption to this, the interaction of the elderly with people and situations should be a matter of great concern. From this point of view, we can easily formulate the necessary policies to counter the negative impact brought about by the experiences. The elderly view aging as a blessing. This is because it comes with challenges which teach those lessons and also presents them opportunities which they can grab. They support improved health standards and nutrition initiatives solely for improving their wellbeing.
In order to gain a deeper understanding of the interview process, this study utilized the Van Mane’s Phenomenological approach to analyze the responses given. Therefore, this therapeutic technique was found to be appropriate for the interview. Therefore, valuable information about the elderly experiences was extracted from the interview session. The interview used therapeutic communication techniques such silence and use of broad openings. Silence was employed in order to enable thee elderly couple to digest all the information concerning their life experiences. This technique added value to the study, and as a result, I captured insights concerning the area of enquiry. Furthermore, silence enhanced the setting of the interview. It gave the elderly enough space and time to broach new topics overarching from the main topic. To the extremes, more information concerning health, safety, nutrition and wellbeing was collected from the interview. Therapeutic communication generates enough information when the respondent is given opportunity to direct the flow of interview. Therefore, the interview process used broad opening technique. The respondents gained a chance to communicate what they decided concerning the topic of the interview. More insights were developed from this technique. Broad opening is used to ignite respondents to communicate what is in their mind. Therefore, the interview highly accredited its utilization. It is a predominant method of collecting data. Mostly, it is applied by the researcher in order to avoid potential and actual sources of bias. The interview was faced by semantic barrier. Next time I will avoid use of more subtopics and be general. The interview brought positive change because the findings were employed by the concerned agencies.
TEACHING TOPIC: HEALTH STATUS AND WELLBEING
The teaching topic was collaboratively chosen. Various techniques and principles of teaching were used. This include drilling and practice, as well as cognitive domain technique. Drilling and practice was used in a bid to make the elderly commemorate basic health and wellbeing concepts. Various adult learning principles such as motivation and preparedness to learn initiatives were employed. They were motivated public awareness initiatives which enlightened them the entire structure and content of the lessons. The teaching session had an objective to brief the elderly about the benefits of health and wellbeing services. It also intended to create awareness on the agencies which facilitate support for the elderly needs. Writing was used to evaluate the cognitive aspect of teaching. It tested whether they remembered what was taught. The practice aspect of teaching was used to test whether they had mentally digested the taught concepts. This ensured the two learning needs were adhered to. Aging elders are important part of our society. We should provide support in their endeavors. They will feel as important and valued part of society.
This paper aimed at assessing the various life experiences of the aging elderly and to provide a brief summary of health and wellbeing concerns for them. From the elderly perspective, the interview and teaching added to the list of their best and enlightening life experiences. According to me, the entire project positively impacted the aging elderly group.
References
Murray, M. D., Hendrie, H. C., Lane, K. A., Zheng, M., Ambuehl, R., Li, S., … & Gao, S. (2018). Antihypertensive Medication and Dementia Risk in Older Adult African Americans with Hypertension: A Prospective Cohort Study. Journal of general internal medicine, 1-8.
Macinko, J., Leventhal, D. G., & Lima-Costa, M. F. (2018). Primary Care and the Hypertension Care Continuum in Brazil. Journal of Ambulatory Care Management, 41(1), 34-46.
Carey, R. M., & Whelton, P. K. (2018). Prevention, detection, evaluation, and management of high blood pressure in adults: synopsis of the 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association hypertension guideline. Annals of internal medicine..
