THE PROBLEM OF AGING: IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING EDUCATION.
Contributors: Temple University.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 176
Subjects: Education, Curriculum and Instruction.
Description: Statement of the Problem. The focus of this study was to describe the problem of aging as it impacts on nursing gerontology. The principal aim of this study was to derive implications for nursing education.

The American society is experiencing an unprecedented growth rate of the elderly population. The present "graying" of America is at least a consequence of demographic variables in force during the early decades of this century. The effects of these variables and those of the "baby boom" years will result in a continued large elderly population. Data show that elderly Americans tend to have an increase in chronic illnesses and a decrease in social resources.

It has been concluded that demographic and morbidity data do not address the problem of aging. If the problem of aging is to be addressed, then demographic and morbidity data are necessary but not sufficient as a source for examining the problem of aging. It must be noted that there is no one single explanatory theory that describes and explains aging or the process of aging. This study, however, accepts the proposition that age-related cellular changes are the source of physiological aging.

If cellular aging is the source of physiological aging, and if all physiological aging processes are decremental, then it is hypothesized that organs and organ systems must be addressed and that physiological aging is relevant to a consideration of chronicity in the elderly.

An examination of alternative propositions that found their bases in sociology failed to establish a special case for social gerontology. It is hypothesized that societal problems of the elderly be constrained to social damages, that is, to the multiple losses of social resources of the elderly that affect their membership and status in society.

Having described biologic and sociologic contexts for the problem of aging, standards of practice for nursing care were critically reviewed and found to be grounded in neither gerontology, geriatrics, or nursing. If standards of nursing care practice are grounded neither in geriatrics nor in gerontology, then the separate practice area of gerontological nursing practice can neither be described nor constrained.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-04, Section: A, page: 0821.

Thesis (ED.D.)--TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, 1987.

School code: 0225.