AGED CARE NURSING
1. Wellness - How do you distinguish health from wellness?
In the past, most individuals and
societies viewed good health, or wellness, as the opposite or absence of
disease. This simple attitude ignores states of health between disease and good
health. Health is a multidimensional concept and should be viewed from a much
broader perspective (Potter & Perry, 2004).
The
World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as a state of complete physical,
mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Many
other aspects of health also need to be considered. Health is a state of being
that people define in relation to their own values, personality, and lifestyle
(Potter & Perry, 2004). How health is viewed can actually vary among
different individuals depending on age-groups, gender, race, and culture.
Wellness is actually just a part of a bigger thing which
is health. It is a healthy state of well-being free from disease. Wellness is generally used to mean a healthy balance of the mind, body and spirit that results in
an overall feeling of well-being.
Wellness is just
a state of good health whereas health can include conditions previously
considered to be illness (Potter & Perry, 2004). An example is a person
with epilepsy who has learned to control seizures with medication and who
functions at home and at work. This person may no longer consider himself or
herself to be ill but he or she cannot also be considered to be well. The
person is just in a state of health.
Health and wellness are not merely
the absence of disease or illness. A person’s state of health, wellness, or
illness depends on individual values, personality and lifestyle.
2. Demographics - Why is it important for nurses to understand
demographics?
There are many external forces that can affect aged care nursing.
One of these is demographics. Demographics is defined as the
characteristics of a human population or part of it, especially its size,
growth, density, distribution, and statistics regarding birth, marriage, disease,
and death (Encarta, 2005). If there are demographic changes, it
affects the population as a whole. Changes that have
influenced healthcare in recent decades include the population shift from rural
areas to urban centers; the increasing life span; the higher incidence of
chronic, long-term illness; and the increased incidence of diseases such as
alcoholism and lung cancer (Potter & Perry, 2004).
Nursing as a profession responds to
such changes by exploring new methods of providing care, by changing
educational emphasis, and by establishing practice standards in new areas
(Potter & Perry, 2004). Demographics can help
determine both the supply of and the demand for health care facilities.
Rapid changes in demographics will
require different approaches to manage quality. Nurses are positioned to play a
pivotal role in delivering and managing quality outcomes while advocating the patients
in an environment that is increasingly complex (Kirkman-Liff, 2002).
Demographics include the changing
population; from the young one, to adults, to old people. At the same time,
that population is aging, so are those in nursing. At the same time, nursing
careers are becoming shorter. Nurses are finding opportunities for meaningful
work in a variety of roles, some of which can take them far from clinical
practice. Along with the demographic shifting, the cultural make-up of the
nursing profession itself is becoming increasingly diverse and global
(Kirkman-Liff, 2002).
REFERENCES:
Kirkman-Liff, B. (2002). Keeping
an Eye on a Moving Target: Quality Changes
and Challenges
for Nurses. Nursing Economics.
Potter, P. and Perry, A.
(2004). Fundamentals of Nursing. Mosby.
MSN Encarta Dictionary.
(2005). Retrieved from:
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/dictionaryhome.aspx
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