The United States has a large number of vulnerable populations because of the increased social vulnerabilities like lack of access to housing, history of racial discrimination, poverty, and lack of language access. These social vulnerabilities expose most people to risk factors such as chronic diseases. The group of vulnerable populations in the U.S. includes children, patients from racial or minority communities, underinsured people, the elderly, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and people with medical conditions (Marsh et al., 2020). The vulnerable population that is challenging to care for is the older adults, who have various chronic health conditions. The elderly population is sickly compared to the general population because of their weak immune system. The immune system of these populations becomes weak every time they age, making them more vulnerable to infectious diseases.
Studies allude that the gaps in coverage and preventative care during their working years cause increased vulnerability among older adults. The obstacles that make it challenging for nurses to care for older adults in the United States include a lack of resources, inappropriate environments, negative attitudes toward elderly care, and inadequate knowledge about the issues affecting the elderly population (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). The high costs of healthcare services have made the older population experience more visits to the emergency department, poor health outcomes, and high hospitalization rates. In essence, my nursing care will change to care for older populations since I will implement strategies that address the social and health-related challenges affecting these populations. As a nurse, I need to involve these populations in healthcare decision-making to promote their quality of life.
Besides, I must stop being a nurse and advocate for improved healthcare services for the elderly adult population. My attention during advocacy should focus on common areas of promoting good health, such as safe medication use, good nutrition plans, psychosocial well-being of the elderly, and physical activities. I need to collaborate with other nurses to offer free patient education that concentrates on smoking cessation, good nutrition, and moderate use of alcohol (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). This will help the elderly population improve their health outcomes. I should encourage these elderly populations to have regular dental care because difficulties with dentition affect chewing nutritious food. Older people can avoid eating healthy foods because of poorly fitted dentures, missing teeth, or lack of oral care.
As a nurse, I must also initiate referrals to case managers or social workers to help older adults with health care or financial concerns while promoting community resources like meal site centers for senior citizens or Means on Wheels (Marsh et al., 2020). This is because the nutrition plan of older adults is affected by their inability to shop and prepare meals due to physical limitations, cognitive impairments, and activity intolerance. In addition, the elderly population needs to understand that physical activity is essential to their life span. I will ensure that this population is helped to find the appropriate ways of maintaining their physical activity since this is the central strategy in nursing intervention.
As a nurse, I also need to encourage the older population to regularly visit their provider for healthcare checkups to discuss the concerns limiting their physical activities. The older adult population should be reassured that pain is not part of the normal aging process; hence, it should be treated to allow them to continue maintaining their physical activities. Also, I need to ensure that old populations receive preventative care that will enable them to stay healthy, such as vaccines that protect them against pneumonia and flu (Heydari et al., 2019). My advocacy plan should also include recommending that these populations go for early detection of dementia so that they can get appropriate treatment and intervention, such as decreased hospitalization for pneumonia, falls, and urinary infections.
References
Heydari, A., Sharifi, M., & Moghaddam, A. B. (2019). Qualitative research challenges and barriers to providing care to older adult patients in the intensive care unit. Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences, 7(21), 3682.
Marsh, J. L., O’Mallon, M., Stockdale, S., & Potter, D. R. (2020). Caring for vulnerable populations during a pandemic: literature review. International Journal of Caring Sciences.
Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2015). Public health nursing: Population-centered health care in the community. Elsevier Health Sciences.
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