Nursing and Elder Abuse Essay Paper

Elder abuse is any intentional or negligent behavior that results in physical, sexual, emotional, pharmacological, and/or financial abuse. Unfortunately, abuse is sometimes difficult to identify, and elders are often hesitant or unable to report abuse themselves (Administration on Aging, n.d.). This makes it important for health care providers to regularly monitor for signs of abuse and react according to local and state laws.

Journal Entry Part 1
For the first part of your journal entry, select and describe one of the following types of elder abuse: physical, sexual, mental/emotional/verbal, pharmacological, or financial. Explain strategies for identifying this abuse. Then, explain how you would proceed based on your local and state laws once you have identified this abuse in a patient. Describe resources in your community that assist victims of this type of abuse and explain how you, as the advanced practice nurse, might apply these resources for abused elders who are identified in the clinical setting.

Journal Entry Part 2
For the second part of your journal entry, reflect on the different cultures—ethnic, religious, regional, or generational—of the elder patient population at your practicum site. Describe the cultures you have observed and explain the influence of these cultures on the prevalence and detection of elder abuse. Then, explain how culture might impact the way you would implement resources for preventing or addressing abuse.

PLEASE INCLUDE AND INTRO AND CONCLUSION

INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING REFERENCE AS 1 OF THE 4:
Resnick, B. (Ed.). (2016). Geriatric nursing review syllabus: A core curriculum in
advanced practice geriatric nursing (5th ed.). New York, NY: American Geriatrics
Society.

Nursing and elder abuse

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Journal Entry Part 1

Physical abuse is sometimes one of the most common type of abuse that the elderly are subjected to owing to their weak strength. It involve the application of physical force or violence to result in bodily harm, injury, physical pain or physical impairment. It takes the form of inappropriate use of restraints, shoving, punching, hitting, battery, slapping, biting, scratching, or assault (Resnick, 2016). There are three strategies for identifying physical abuse among the elderly. The first strategy involves identifying the physical indicators of physical abuse. The indicators include dislocated joints, sprains, broken bones, hair loss having been pulled out, losing a tooth, bruising at different stages, internal injuries, burns caused by appliances, and cigarette burns. The second strategy involves identifying the behavioral indicators of physical abuse.  Nursing and Elder Abuse Essay Paper The indicators include victim withdrawing from previously enjoyable social activities, strained relationship with caregiver, unreasonable explanations for noted injuries, and trips to different facilities to avoid detection of abuse. Other behavioral indicators include delay in seeking treatment for physical injuries, and past history for similar physical injuries (Harris, 2016). The third strategy is interviews where the victim and others with close contact to the victim are interviewed to ascertain the source of the injury. Conducting interviews is important since self-neglect can easily be mistaken for physical abuse. In this case, the latter is perpetrated by someone else apart from the victim while the former is perpetrated by the victim. Physical abuse is considered a crime and medical personnel are expected to report their occurrence to law enforcement agencies under mandatory reporting laws. In addition to reporting physical abuse as a crime, the nurse should provide physical treatment while recommending the client for psychological treatment. In addition, the victim should be offered access to helplines as a resource that helps the victims recover, learn more about physical abuse, and protects them from future incidences of physical abuse (Teitelbaum & Wilensky, 2013).

Journal Entry Part 2

My practicum site has a substantial Chinese population. The Chinese culture is heavily influenced by Confucian arguments that emphasize filial piety with clear delineation of the responsibilities, roles and power of each member of the family. In this case, the younger members of the community have an obligatory role to take responsibility for the care of the elderly. This is considered as reciprocation of initial care that the elderly provided to the younger members of the community. In return for the care that the elderly receive, they are expected to provide wisdom and guidance to the younger members of the community. In essence, the Chinese culture presents a system of interdependent between the elderly and other members of the community, which seeks to protect the elderly (Chang & Dong, 2014). However, it is notable that although most persons of Chinese descent are influence by their tradition culture to protect the elderly from abuse, there are those who are less adherent to the Confucian arguments supporting filial piety. This is particularly true for the second generation Chinese immigrants who have lived all their life in the US. The presence of these less adherent younger populations implies that the elderly are no longer guaranteed the care, power and prestige that is typical of the traditional Chinese culture, and some of the elderly are forced into stressful adjustments. The result is that physical abuse among elderly Chinese persons is increasingly becoming common, although there are some reservations among the perpetrators who are keen to act with moderation.  Given that the Chinese traditional culture seeks to protect elderly populations from abuse, then it would be prudent to involve local Chinese community leaders in preventing and addressing cases of abuse since they are likely to observe the traditional culture and actively protect the elderly (Chang & Dong, 2014).

References

Chang, E-S. & Dong, X. (2014). Understanding elder abuse in the Chinese community: the role of cultural, social, and community factors. In Forum on Global Violence Prevention, Board on Global Health, Institute of Medicine, & National Research Council (Eds.), ‘Elder abuse and its prevention: workshop summary’. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK208566/

Harris, M. (2016). Handbook of home health care administration (6^th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Resnick, B. (Ed.). (2016). Geriatric nursing review syllabus: a core curriculum in advanced practice geriatric nursing (5^th ed.). New York, NY: American Geriatrics Society.

Teitelbaum, J. & Wilensky, S. (2013). Essentials of health policy and law (2^nd ed.). Sunbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.  Nursing and Elder Abuse Essay Paper