Educational Needs Of The Elderly

Question: Discuss about the Needs and Educational Needs of the Elderly. Answer: Needs And Educational Needs Of The Elderly Falls remain a core threat to the QoL and independence of the elderly. Falls are a high incidence as well as high cost health care problem among the seniors. Falls are inevitable consequence of aging. However, there are proven and effective strategies that if taught well, will significantly help prevent falls (Bunn et al., 2014). The seniors are much fearful of the falls and this makes them confine their activity as a mechanism to evade the risk of falling. Surprisingly, this restriction/behavior really surges the risk of falling through the loss of strength and muscle. Deaths and injuries arising from falls are common, but remain an un-inevitable consequence of aging as they can be effectively prevented through appropriate educational/teaching strategies for seniors (Ishigaki, Ramos, Carvalho & Lunardi, 2014). Such strategies are aimed at providing not only the seniors, but also medical community, social service providers and health professionals with info and tools required to tackle the problem of falls among the seniors. Specifically, exceptional consideration is accorded to seniors age 65 or older since they are at higher risk for falls. This group needs education/teaching because age and falling are directly related in that such physiological changes including a decline in vision, cognition, strength, flexibility, and balance increase as one grow older thus putting seniors at higher risks for falls (Palvanen, 2014). This is because they lead to slower response time/excessive fatigue in the course of emergency and difficult situations hence increased risk for fall and its associated injuries and deaths. Such factors as chronic health problems, medications/alcohol abuse, functional and physical impairment as well as hazards at dwellings are fall-contributing factors. Teaching Strategies New information shall be presented to the seniors at a much slower rate than younger people. Also, speaking swill be done in low tone and allow adequate time for seniors to assimilate as well as integrate conceptual materials. I will allow ample time for assimilation alongside integration of conceptual materials, and stress concrete instead of abstract materials. I will lower environmental distraction to compensate for age-linked hearing loss as well as assist seniors with concentration and attention. Group teaching shall assist some seniors increase their health associated problem solving abilities (Tricco et al., 2017). I will also use individualized teaching-learning plan to fit both needs and lifestyles of seniors and have seniors participate actively in setting goals. The goals will be individualized both according to what seniors need and what they choose to do. Also, when suggesting lifestyle changes, I will remain aware that many seniors stay cautious and might never effect changes easily. Thus, I will be guided by the fact that the implication for seniors’ teaching is that more time must be taken in teaching and that educational materials must be delivered in small increments to integrate materials. Cultural Traditions There is a cultural tradition of teaching in some ways like oral teaching in Aboriginal populations. Aboriginal teachings are always held as oral traditions. Thus, utilizing media to communicate knowledge, histories and philosophies is never a traditional way. The modern Aboriginal teachings entail both oral and written forms (Goodwin et al., 2014). However, the thought and traditions habits linked with oral philosophies remain common in all forms. Therefore, such habits like stories and story-telling stay common means of sharing knowledge as well as skills with Aboriginal communities. Thus, seniors will adapt stories to suit several situations alongside needs. Literacy/Language Issue? I will consider specific teaching techniques because some seniors have rising hurdles understanding complex sentences, less proficient than younger ones in inference drawing, and have problems with motor tasks. This is due to language or literacy issues. Medium There is a particular media which remains better for reaching elderly populations at higher risk of falls. For example, interactive and individualized activity with the seniors’ program will be fruitful. Evaluation Evaluation of elderly knowledge will be based on a pretest-post-test design. Three “fill-in-the-blank” questions about 3 risk factors for falls shall be compared. Also, 3 safety hazards at homes along with 3 fall-prevention will be compared. Further, one multiple-choice question regarding a sequence of injury as a result of a fall will be answered. The post-test scores will improve from those of pretest. This implies that improvement will be as a result of a teaching session. I will also evaluate seniors based on direct observation when they carry out physical exercise (Burton et al., 2015). I will also evaluate them using an oral survey. I will ask the seniors questions if they completely, partly understood or do not understand at all. Thus, as seen above, the pre/post-test work and a survey would both remain effective. However, a return demonstration would not be appropriate in this case. References Bunn, F., Dickinson, A., Simpson, C., Narayanan, V., Humphrey, D., Griffiths, C., … & Victor, C. (2014). Preventing falls among older people with mental health problems: a systematic review. BMC nursing, 13(1), 4. Burton, E., Cavalheri, V., Adams, R., Browne, C. O., Bovery-Spencer, P., Fenton, A. M., … & Hill, K. D. (2015). Effectiveness of exercise programs to reduce falls in older people with dementia living in the community: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical interventions in aging, 10, 421. Goodwin, V. A., Abbott, R. A., Whear, R., Bethel, A., Ukoumunne, O. C., Thompson-Coon, J., & Stein, K. (2014). Multiple component interventions for preventing falls and fall-related injuries among older people: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC geriatrics, 14(1), 15. Ishigaki, E. Y., Ramos, L. G., Carvalho, E. S., & Lunardi, A. C. (2014). Effectiveness of muscle strengthening and description of protocols for preventing falls in the elderly: a systematic review. Brazilian journal of physical therapy, 18(2), 111-118. Palvanen, M., Kannus, P., Piirtola, M., Niemi, S., Parkkari, J., & Järvinen, M. (2014). Effectiveness of the Chaos Falls Clinic in preventing falls and injuries of home-dwelling older adults: a randomised controlled trial. Injury, 45(1), 265-271. Tricco, A. C., Thomas, S. M., Veroniki, A. A., Hamid, J. S., Cogo, E., Strifler, L., … & Thavorn, K. (2017). Comparisons of Interventions for Preventing Falls in Older Adults

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