Topics About 'Geriatric Nursing'.

The population of older adults (aged 65+ years old) in the United States is one of the fastest-growing demographics in the nation. Growth is expected to reach 80.8 million by 2040, which is twice as many older adults as there were in 20001. Prepari...

"Your Dad fell again," declared the emergency room physician as I answered the 2 am phone call. The words made me cringe as another fall caused an emergency room visit for my aging father. My robust and energetic father was slowly becoming a frail ol...

I worked as a floor nurse and supervisor in long term care (a.k.a. LTC, nursing homes, or aged care) on and off for six years. Last year I wrote two articles that placed a mostly positive spin on working in the LTC industry. This year I will attempt ...

.....I went and lost my heart to yet another hospice patient. Her name is Dottie, and she is 85 pounds of trouble dressed in a white satin nightgown and an ancient pair of fuzzy pink slippers. She came to our nursing home in early April for a five-da...

This is Part 2 of a two-part series of articles on caring for the elderly in the ED setting. Sanders (1996) developed 11 principles of geriatric emergency care that should be used when assessing older adults. These precepts are as follows: Complex Pr...

The long term care industry (a.k.a. nursing home industry) employs a large share of new and experienced nurses in the United States. Furthermore, the number of nurses who secure employment in this specialty is projected to increase in the next ten ye...

Unfortunately for me, David was my patient and I was the newest nurse on the unit. That meant I was usually assigned to him, and it didn't matter that I preferred not to be. I had to figure out some way to reach him. Thus far, I was failing miserably...

The nursing homes of today have greatly evolved from the facilities of yesteryear. Long term care (LTC) facilities are admitting higher-acuity patients to make up for declining Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates. Some nurses would say that the...

Not only is it the day hospitals discharge frail elderly patients to the nursing homes en masse, but it seems that they do it in such a way as to maximize the inconvenience for both the new resident and the LTC staff. I mean, it can't be just a coinc...

So this morning as I was enthroned upon the seat of wisdom, trying to decide what I was going to do with these precious 48 hours of weekend and instead thinking about work, it occurred to me that each area of nursing has its own language.....a specia...

Professionals who work with residents of nursing homes, memory care units, assisted living facilities, geriatric psychiatric centers, and other types of long term care settings experience a mixture of triumphs and stressors on a daily basis. The heal...

78 years. That's it. That is the average life expectancy at birth in the United States. Doesn't seem like enough time to accomplish it all does it? As a nurse, I work with people who are at the end of their lives every day. Most are elderly and have ...

It is a typical shift in the emergency department (ed). Lydia smith, a 79-year-old woman, has fallen at home, hitting her face on the concrete slab on her front porch. Her medical history includes mild parkinson's disease, congestive heart failure, a...

It is as if being a nurse is an admirable thing that one should be proud of unless you are a LTC nurse, in which case, you are not a "real nurse" because you don't work in a hospital. Many times, not knowing what to say, they will simply reply, "I co...

Indeed, we can't deny that we work with reduced staff in high acuity settings in our current health care environment. These workload pressures cause us to prioritize elements of care. But should we dismiss the significance of oral care? Perhaps if we...