Trends of Population Aging in the World
Question:
Discuss about the Intentions to quit work among care staff.
Population aging has emerged as one of the biggest social transformation of the 21st century, as each country on the globe is observing the increase in the number of elders in their population (Rechel et al. 2013). The global trends of population aging published by the World Health Organization determined that compared to the 0.5 billion world elderly population of 1990, is estimated to enhance up to 2.1 billion by the end of 2050 (United Nations 2015). The census of world population in 2017 determined that there are more than 960 million people over the age of 60 is present in the world, comprising 13% of the world population. The major concern in this context is that the rate of population aging is growing by 3% every year and currently Europe is having the greatest percentage of aged population, which is 25%. The world forum understood the severity of this situation very early and organized the ‘Vienna International Plan of Action on Aging’ in the year 1982 (United Nations 2015). According to the data of Ireland government’s official census data, currently there is 0.6 million 65 and above people are living in Ireland which is estimated to reach more than 1.5 million by the end of 2041. The primary reason behind this population aging shift is due to the increase in the life expectancy, that has made the life expectancy at the time of birth for male is 76.8 years and for female it is 81.6 years. This has made the Irish government to think about the aging population with more concern as they require careful planning and support from the lawful policies so that their integrity, independence can be maintained (RTE News 2017). Increase in the healthcare related costs is the prime concern of the global society and according to CARDI, the number of aged people using the residential care or old age care centers is going to increase up to 12,270 by 2021, however there is a restricted amount of shelter homes, or residential care homes are present in Ireland (Central Statistics Office 2018).
Currently, there is a numerous amount aged care programs are running or in pipeline addressed to the aged population of Ireland, sponsored by either the government or by the private organizations. According to the governmental website of Ireland government, the Health Service Executive (2016), there is currently 12 such projects running for aging population to maintain their health and to support their integrity. However, there is no such data is available on the website, from which it can be stated that the population is able to take advantage of these policies. on the other hand, the aged care centers present in the society are meant for a specific group of disability or a specific group of community, hence overall support and development of aged community is still not been achieved (Ireland’s Health Service 2016). Hence, the assignment is proposing an aged healthcare and social care program namely “caring for the elderly” in which the overall development of the elderly people will be achieved through governmental and local support. The program will commence in the city where the number of aged people is higher that is Killarney (according to Central Statistics Office (2018), the average age of this city is 40.9 years). This aged care program will spread to other cities once the program in Killarney becomes successful.
Challenges of Population Aging in Ireland
The primary aim of this “caring for the elderly” program is to understand the shortcoming of the aged population in the context of health, society, self-confidence and will try to solve these issues with the help of governmental norms. They will be provided with medical interventions as well within the care homes created under this program. Lastly, the project will provide them with the opportunity, so that they can maintain their independency and revive their skills.
- Understand the healthcare related need of aged population within the society, and provide them with quality intervention.
- In the care home under the “caring for the elderly” program, the views of the residents will be respected and they will be provided with freedom of choice to maintain their self-esteem.
- The projects objective will be complying with the governmental norms regarding healthcare programs, so that governmental support can be achieved.
- Further to revive their self-confidence and independency, objective of the healthcare program is to make their skillful by incorporating them in art and crafts.
The contemporary aged care programs currently running in Ireland, focuses on three aspects of aged care, medical support by providing healthcare intervention, mental support by providing counselling and increase their involvement in the social and political context by promoting social inclusion and community cohesion (National Council on Aging & Older People2015). An aged care system, currently operated by the National Council on Aging People of Ireland works for the promotion of health, autonomy and overall welfare of the older people, further it has collaborated with the international bodies having similar objectives so that their successful strategies can be implemented in Ireland as well. Further, their data is helpful for the governmental departments such as the Ministry of Health and Children care so that the loopholes present in the current policy can be improved (National Council on Aging & Older People 2015). However, according to Jewkeys, Flood and Lang (2015), it is very important for any healthcare or social care campaign to spread awareness within the society, so that mindful people from the society can also take part in the health/social care developmental program. This is the primary loophole of the aged care facility provided by the National Council on Aging People. Further, the three most relevant aged care service seen in Irish society are geriatric care service, long-stay service and the community care service (Murphy and Turner 2014). All these service were introduced in the healthcare system so that the occupied bed in the hospitals with elderly populations can be freed for other patients. However, this concept weakens the older care program psychologically as it fills the aged population with low self-esteem. However, according to the data of National Council on Aging & Older People (2015), the percentage of people currently utilizing such facilities in their homes are only 18% therefore, the reach of this underdeveloped care facility in Ireland is the most crucial factor. Furthermore, the care facility is only restricted to occupational therapy or physiotherapeutic care. Therefore, all the different healthcare facilities such as mental wellness, social care, diet and nutritional care are not properly addressed in the community. on the other hand, the another kind of care service, where the abducted old people, who are not having any off-springs to take care of their needs, are provided with medical and social care but the number of such care facilities are very low in the entire Ireland (Murphy and Turner 2014). Moreover, in this emerging parallel care facility, concept of specialist care such as care home destined to provide healthcare facilities for special patients and in special cases, limits the goal of overall care meant for the growth development and wellness of the older generation. Therefore, this “caring for the elderly” program has been proposed so that all the shortcomings of the aged care programs currently running in Ireland can be addressed and a proper program can be launched (Jewkeys, Flood and Lang 2015).
Current Aged Care Programs in Ireland
The most important aspect of the aged care program “caring for the elderly” is the absence of inclusion criteria that incorporates a larger section of aged people with the care program (Lee and Kwak 2012). Hence, for the overall growth and sustainable development of the program, it is important to take support of any theoretical framework. The social model of healthcare is such a theoretical model that helps the people under aged care with proper social, mental, monitoring, diet and nutritional and proper supervision that maintains their safety. As well as, the care process can also include various means that will be helpful for enhancing their independency and self-esteem such as means ti provide financial stability, support in activities of daily living, transportation facility and many more (Unützer et al. 2013). Programs based on social model of healthcare has been seen to provide and overall quality care to the elderly people and help them to replenish their cognitive and physical impairments with the help of informal caregivers in a low and affordable price than the other occupational and nursing care homes. Furthermore, from the aspect of healthcare workers, in a restricted framework of healthcare, burnouts commonly hampers the care giving process, therefore in the informal care giving process, chances of burnouts are very less therefore, they can focus on the quality healthcare, fundamental needs and safety as well as nutrition in an caring and friendly environment (Quill and Abernethy 2013).
Therefore based on this framework, the aged care program will provide mental and health related care to 60 plus aged people in the city Killarney and will include each of the individuals either having cognitive impairment, healthcare related issues or emotional deficits (Quill and Abernethy 2013). The aims and objectives of the program will remain same and depending on the framework the interventions will be applied to fulfill their health needs, fundamental needs and emotional support (Unützer et al. 2013). The activities which will be included in the program are exercises, stretching, art, music, gardening and several other cognitive and physical activities so that overall development of such people can be made possible. Furthermore, those adults will be provided with diet and nutritional educations and assistance so that they can maintain their diet and for the mental wellness weekly counselling will be arranged for the residents (Lee and Kwak 2012).
This new concept of informal care process is the new trend in the healthcare industry nowadays and therefore the social model of healthcare utilizes this model for the overall care for the elderly in Ireland (Salje et al. 2014). However, the Irish medical culture still lacks experienced care giving process, volunteer caregivers and specialized care homes as the number of such care providers are very less. However, there is a huge increase in these informal care givers from last few years and Karantzas et al. (2012) conducted a research to understand the reason of this increase using a questionnaire distributed among such volunteers working in healthcare homes. The questionnaire had questions related to their job satisfaction, burnouts and why they chose for this care process. According to the responders, the hospital facility provided them with best infrastructure and facilities however the stress and pressure increases the events of burnouts that forced them to quit the job and join the informal care process as the chances of burnouts are less in the process. On the other hand, according to Temple, Jukic and Dow (2017), researchers were to find out the effect of informal care process on residents and compared that with the residents of a community care center. The researchers found that due to developed relationships with care providers and sessions like art and music therapy, and gardening the cognitive skills of patients developed tremendously compared to the community care center’s patients. Therefore from these evidences it is clear than social model of healthcare and informal care are effective for such aged care program (Salje et al. 2014).
Proposal for the “Caring for the Elderly” Program
Prior to develop care program for elderly people, it is important for the aged care program developers to understand the basic needs that will be targeted through this program as it will help them to deliver a cumulative program including each of the necessary aspects of elderly in Killarney city (Légaré and Witteman 2013). As the prime aim of the “caring for the elderly” is to target physical as well as mental needs of them, the program will include physical and mental strength increasing skills, skills for mental stability, diet and nutrition, transportation or mobility needs, occupational therapy and increasing their independence and self-esteem through proving them means of financial stability (Arendts et al. 2012).
To attain the aims and targets, al the residents will be divided into sections depending on the physical activity level, cognitive skills and physical ailments. Further, depending on the ability to perform tasks such as physical exercises and activity of daily life, they will be assigned tasks that requires physical and mental strength (Légaré and Witteman 2013). Further, residents having disability or cognitive impairments will be provided with tasks that will help them to grow their self-respect and esteem. The local experts of the city will be asked to join the campaign with or without any pay, so that the residents can perform all these tasks under expert supervision. Moreover, for the serious elderly patients, requiring geriatric care and transportation facility, several private and governmental organization will be asked for assistance and support. The government and private organizations will also be asked for sponsorship or funding so that all these activities can be performed smoothly (Arendts et al. 2012).
As the aged care program “caring for the elderly” is developed for all the aged people in the city of Killarney, with several benefits, it brings few barriers in the process. The barriers affecting the program can be divided into two groups such as barriers related to healthcare workers and barriers related to the workplace.
- As the informal workers are inclusive of inexperience and fresher healthcare workers, lack of training and induction prior to working in such a big project can be a limitation, as they might unable to provide quality care to the patients.
- Although the chances of burnouts are less, however bad behavior or negative attitude of staff towards the residents can affect the mental and physical health of the residents (Benjamin et al. 2014).
- Communication gap can hamper the healthcare quality of the facility. This might happen as the entire program is new and the staff will need some time to understand their colleagues and residents as well. Therefore communication gap is the biggest barrier in the initial days of the program.
- Due to inexperience, the staff might be unable to understand the elder patient’s inability to perform exercise or other activity and forcing him/her can affect the patient’s perception about the care facility in the “caring for the elderly” program (Aldridge et al. 2016).
- The prime benefit of this aged care program will be occurrence of an overall care prospect for the elderly population of Killarney that will help them to increase their self-esteem, self-determination and independency (Moriarty et al. 2015).
- Further, all the opportunity to perform tasks, exercises and art sessions will help to increase their cognitive and physical strengths.
- The healthcare providers will be able to focus on each elderly individual properly and the less chance of burnout will help them to increase their skills related to aged care (Cameron et al. 2012).
The evaluation process will be based on questionnaires and personal interviews with the care program residents and will be conducted on three intervals, prior to commencement of the program, in between the program and after 12 months of the program to achieve an unbiased and proper evaluation (Moriarty et al. 2015).
Conclusion
While concluding, it should be mentioned that population aging is one of the major concerns of this century and each of the nation in this world is focusing on the needs of the elders so that their fundamental needs can be fulfilled. Therefore, the governmental and private healthcare facilities are focusing on creating care homes so that the self-esteem and independence of the elderly population can be reinforced with health and mental wellbeing. In this assignment, aged care program “caring for the elderly” was introduced that contains several aspect of mental and physical healthcare meant for overall development of elderly population. This care program is based on the social model of healthcare and literature review was conducted to understand the nature and loopholes of aged care programs currently running in Ireland. Furthermore, the assignment also included barriers related to the workforce or the carers so that the loopholes present in the process can be fulfilled prior to implementation.
Objectives of the “Caring for the Elderly” Program
References
Aldridge, M.D., Hasselaar, J., Garralda, E., van der Eerden, M., Stevenson, D., McKendrick, K., Centeno, C. and Meier, D.E., 2016. Education, implementation, and policy barriers to greater integration of palliative care: a literature review. Palliative medicine, 30(3), pp.224-239.
Arendts, G., Dickson, C., Howard, K. and Quine, S., 2012. Transfer from residential aged care to emergency departments: an analysis of patient outcomes. Internal medicine journal, 42(1), pp.75-82.
Benjamin, K., Edwards, N., Ploeg, J. and Legault, F., 2014. Barriers to physical activity and restorative care for residents in long-term care: a review of the literature. Journal of aging and physical activity, 22(1), pp.154-165.
Cameron, I.D., Gillespie, L.D., Robertson, M.C., Murray, G.R., Hill, K.D., Cumming, R.G. and Kerse, N., 2012. Interventions for preventing falls in older people in care facilities and hospitals. The Cochrane Library.
Central Statistics Office 2018. Census of Population 2016 – Profile 3 An Age Profile of Ireland – CSO – Central Statistics Office. [online] Cso.ie. Available at: https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp3oy/cp3/ [Accessed 10 Mar. 2018].
Ireland’s Health Service 2016. Services for Older People in Ireland – Ireland’s Health Service. [online] Ireland’s Health Service. Available at: https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/olderpeople/
Jewkes, R., Flood, M. and Lang, J., 2015. From work with men and boys to changes of social norms and reduction of inequities in gender relations: a conceptual shift in prevention of violence against women and girls. The Lancet, 385(9977), pp.1580-1589.
Karantzas, G.C., Mellor, D., McCabe, M.P., Davison, T.E., Beaton, P. and Mrkic, D., 2012. Intentions to quit work among care staff working in the aged care sector. The Gerontologist, 52(4), pp.506-516.
Lee, G. and Kwak, Y.H., 2012. An open government maturity model for social media-based public engagement. Government Information Quarterly, 29(4), pp.492-503.
Légaré, F. and Witteman, H.O., 2013. Shared decision making: examining key elements and barriers to adoption into routine clinical practice. Health affairs, 32(2), pp.276-284.
Moriarty, F., Hardy, C., Bennett, K., Smith, S.M. and Fahey, T., 2015. Trends and interaction of polypharmacy and potentially inappropriate prescribing in primary care over 15 years in Ireland: a repeated cross-sectional study. BMJ open, 5(9), p.e008656.
Murphy, C. and Turner, T., 2014. Organising non?standard workers: union recruitment in the Irish care sector. Industrial Relations Journal, 45(5), pp.373-388.
National Council on Ageing & Older People 2015. National Council on Ageing & Older People – Lenus, The Irish Health Repository. [online] Lenus.ie. Available at: https://www.lenus.ie/hse/handle/10147/234134
Quill, T.E. and Abernethy, A.P., 2013. Generalist plus specialist palliative care—creating a more sustainable model. New England Journal of Medicine, 368(13), pp.1173-1175.
Rechel, B., Grundy, E., Robine, J.M., Cylus, J., Mackenbach, J.P., Knai, C. and McKee, M., 2013. Ageing in the European union. The Lancet, 381(9874), pp.1312-1322.
RTE News 2017. Ageing population increasing demands on health service. [online] RTE.ie. Available at: https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2017/0706/888220-census-age-data/ [Accessed 10 Mar. 2018].
Salje, H., Andrews, J.R., Deo, S., Satyanarayana, S., Sun, A.Y., Pai, M. and Dowdy, D.W., 2014. The importance of implementation strategy in scaling up Xpert MTB/RIF for diagnosis of tuberculosis in the Indian health-care system: a transmission model. PLoS medicine, 11(7), p.e1001674.
Temple, J.B., Jukic, M. and Dow, B., 2017. Informal care relationships and residential aged care recommendations: evidence from administrative data. BMC geriatrics, 17(1), p.289.
United Nations 2015. World Population Ageing,. [online] Un.org. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/ageing/WPA2015_Report.pdf
Unützer, J., Harbin, H., Schoenbaum, M. and Druss, B., 2013. The collaborative care model: An approach for integrating physical and mental health care in Medicaid health homes. Health Home Information Resource Center, pp.1-13.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
