Analysis of an Age-Related Topic
Ageing is a phenomenon that interests healthcare professionals, and concern for problems related to ageing range from health problems to psychosocial, legal, and financial issues. Gerontologists, scientists interested in the scope of ageing and all that comes with it, identify several complications that relate to human age progression. One that stands out of the many is chronic health conditions that are comorbid with older age. Chronic health conditions tend to advance with progress in age because of the frailty of the human body, and they carry with them social and cultural implications, remedied by available resources in interventions.
Chronic health problems encompass a list of diseases that are debilitating and can make old age unpleasant. As Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields opine, understanding chronic illnesses in old age requires an understanding of psychological, biological, life-cycle, and socio-cultural aspects (Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields, 2018). Notable diseases that affect the older generation include arthritis, diabetes, different types of cancer, degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and dementia, among others. These diseases develop and progress depending on the psychological, biological, and socio-cultural factors. Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields identify factors such as access to adequate healthcare and differences in coping strategies that dictate how older citizens deal with and perceive chronic illnesses. The illnesses have devastating symptoms that make life uncomfortable for older people and often drives them into isolation. As Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields explain, “Although medical advances revolutionize healthcare every year, definitive cures for these conditions are not imminent.” (Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields 2018 pp.105). The lack of definitive treatment for these conditions creates a problem that interests healthcare providers. Many older adults often end up in home-based care, provided by family members or in advanced cases, nursing professionals.
Older adults seem to be the most affected by the problems of chronic health conditions. The older adult bracket is quite general, and many people who have successfully dealt with their situations may fall into this bracket. Jaul and Barron (2017), identified that the American population of people of 85 years of age as the most affected by chronic illness. They identify specific conditions such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and dementia as the most common problems for people who are 85 years and older. However, chronic illnesses affect a larger population than the 85 years or older bracket. Studies show that chronic health conditions extend further into younger age groups of 6os and 70s (McLeod et al., 2017). Differences that exist between different age groups, of how the conditions affect them, relate to their age, coping strategies, and availability of healthcare services.
Chronic health conditions have an overall effect on society at large and have cultural and social consequences, and management treatments for these conditions often cost a lot of money. Studies show that the older population spends a lot of their finances and Medicare finances for these conditions (Flowers et al., 2017). Being that they are lifelong conditions that have no definitive cure, the costs of management are high. The constant need for pharmacological and non-pharmacological intervention is indispensable for these people. People in the age bracket of 60 to 80 are retired from their jobs and settle to quiet lives at home; therefore, the financial strain extends to family members who often have to care for their older members. However, this support is not always available to them. Oluwaseun et al. opine that willful action to abuse or neglect the elderly, and lack of appropriate action to take care of them is prevalent more so with those who have chronic illnesses (Oluwaseun et al., 2019). The government may have to intervene to ensure that they receive the required care concerning their unique conditions. The illnesses may also require the elderly to abandon their cultural beliefs to give way for efficient care from caregivers. For example, a woman with an Arab origin conceals her body as per her culture’s provisions. However, if they contract a degenerative disease such as Parkinson’s disease, she may need assistance from another person, which would require her to be vulnerable and exposed.
As debilitating as they may be, chronic health conditions are manageable by collaborative interventions in society. While technological advances may not provide a pharmacological cure for these conditions, it plays a significant role in easing their consequences. Guthrie et al.’s analysis describe the results of innovative technology-supported interventions to improve older adults’ quality of life (Guthrie et al., 2018). One of their investigation, self-management of hypertension using a smartphone with older black women, the study proses a technology-based intervention to offer support to the elderly using mobile phones. One might ask how the elderly can navigate complicated new technology. They would require additional teaching interventions, led by nursing professionals, to teach them how to identify problems and seek medical attention. As MacLeod et al. propose, older adults benefit from educational interventions that help them identify choices compatible with their conditions (MacLeod et al., 2017). Health literacy programs also help the elderly seek medical attention promptly before deterioration and gives them a chance to increase the quality of their lives.
Since chronic health conditions do not have comprehensive pharmacological remedies, many of the older adults move back to their homes after hospitalization. Self-management is one of the most successful interventions for chronic elderly conditions. In his book ‘Promoting Self-Management of Chronic Health Conditions,’ Martz describes different self-management practices for various chronic diseases (Martz, 2017). For example, he proposes to exercise, smoking cessation, changing eating habits, and religious adherence to medication as some of the ways to take care of oneself in the event they have a cardiac-related health issue. While it is not a substitute for medical care, self-management goes a long way to ensure that the elderly population is responsible for their health and that they promptly report any issues they experience.
Improving the experience of life while living with chronic health conditions requires familial and social support. Families of affected patients provide assistance, daycare, and help them as they navigate through their state. Writers identify extra individual factors that contribute to the elderly life experience; among these is a social environment, built and human, that supports their physical changes and adjustments (Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields, 2018). Social support for the elderly is crucial in navigating the physical effects of chronic conditions such as Parkinson’s disease that renders them immobile or unable to do day to day tasks. Social support requires limited resources and often accompanies other interventions. Management of chronic conditions is costly and involves society to pull in resources to create and implement interventions successfully. Today, many people own and are familiar with the use of smartphones. The vast availability of these phones, including cheaper options that work as well, creates a resource pool for technology use in improving the experience of chronic conditions.
Interventions to offset the problem of chronic health conditions require tangible resources that may be financially, mentally and physically taxing. While available Medicare may compensate financial costs for older people (Flowers et al., 2017), mental and physical taxing on caregivers as well as the patients, are irrefutable. The intervention programs rely heavily on social support and intraindividual factors to elicit desired results. This dependence may add to the financial cost of taking care of the elderly with chronic health conditions. Literacy programs may also require the services of nurses and resource acquisition to facilitate learning suitable for older adult patients. As Martz explains, the WHO outlines a range of actions that can finance innovative chronic care, including legislation and policies that relieve healthcare costs (Martz, 2017). The steps give way for programs that teach self-management techniques, and how to navigate technology supplement to self-management.
The effectiveness of healthcare intervention programs owes to their sustainability over time. The interventions retain their feasibility over time because of the revolution that technology results in medical care. Constant changes and advancement in technology innovations allow for technology-based interventions to sustain older people in the management of chronic health conditions. As Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields recount, innovative mediation programs stand the test of time as it advances and changes the field of medical care (Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields, 2018). They allow patients to self-assess and receive care while at home. Unconditional social support fostered by community involvement also tolerates the pressure exerted by the needs of older people living with chronic conditions.
Ageing comes with a myriad of complications discussed across various topics. Old age often associates with chronic health problems, and the elderly depend on society and the healthcare system to provide maintenance strategies for these problems. Healthcare service providers work to identify intervention programs that promote better lives for the elderly, even when they struggle with debilitating illnesses. Different facets of society must collaborate in easing the lives of the elderly as their numbers increase, and the population affected by chronic diseases inadvertently increases.
References
Adigun, O. O., Mikhail, A. G., & Hatcher, J. D. (2019). Abuse and Neglect. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing.
Cavanaugh, J. C., & Blanchard-Fields, F. (2018). Adult development and aging. Cengage Learning.
Flowers, L., Houser, A., Noel-Miller, C., Shaw, J., Bhattacharya, J., Schoemaker, L., & Farid, M. (2017). Medicare spends more on socially isolated older adults. Insight on the Issues, 125, 1119-1143.
Guthrie, B., Sceppa, C., & Jimison, H. (2018). USING TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPORT HEALTHY AGING AND ADDRESS CHRONIC ILLNESS: THE NUCARE CENTER. Innovation in Aging, 2(Suppl 1), 358.
Jaul, E., & Barron, J. (2017). Age-related diseases and clinical and public health implications for the 85 years old and overpopulation. Frontiers in public health, 5, 335.
MacLeod, S., Musich, S., Gulyas, S., Cheng, Y., Tkatch, R., Cempellin, D., … & Yeh, C. S. (2017). The impact of inadequate health literacy on patient satisfaction, healthcare utilization, and expenditures among older adults. Geriatric Nursing, 38(4), 334-341.
Martz, E. (Ed.). (2017). Promoting self-Management of chronic health conditions: theories and practice. Oxford University Press.