Nursing Homes Are Best Place For Elderly †Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Nursing Homes Are Best Place For Elderly? Answer: Introducation The question whether nursing homes are suitable for the elderly people is a contentious issue that has been a major focus by health workers and family members. A nursing home is a residential based care that offers nursing care to the elderly who do not necessarily require hospitalization but are in need of medical care and assistance. Nursing homes provide long-stay care for the elderly persons (Morley et al. 2014: 309). For this reason, the demand and dependency of care homes/nursing homes continue increasing steadily due to the increase in the population in need. Despite this fact, a majority of people argue that nursing homes are the best places for the aged persons while others maintain that the place in unsuitable, unfavorable and inefficient in meeting the health care needs of the elderly. In this case, therefore, this paper seeks to illuminate the reasons why nursing homes are the best place for the elderly. There has been significance dependency in the nursing care homes in the recent decades. Consequently, nursing care homes experience population pressure a factor that is largely contributed by earlier discharge from health care facilities (Rolland et al.2014:308). The nursing care home is a suitable alternative that has helped in accommodating the growing number of frail people. It has thus helped families ease the burden of caring for their old relatives and instead offer services that these people may not receive in their residents (Katz, 2011: 488). Some factors have also led to the increased desire for nursing home admission (Spector et al.2013: 675-677). Firstly, approximately, two-third of the persons admitted to the hospital are 65 and above thus the frequent admission from hospital to nursing care homes. Secondly, there is the decrease in the number of the older people seeking inpatient services. Moreover, there is the issue of early discharge and consequent admission the nursing care home. Thirdly is the inappropriate use of hospital by this category of people d ue to bed-locking thus the need for enrollment in care homes. Older people admission to hospitals is associated with patient's exacerbation of stress, illness, and anxiety. Therefore, nursing care homes play a major role in preventing hospitalization. Mainly, nursing care homes reduce the rate of hospital readmission for the elderly. While the above point underpins the importance of older people admission to nursing homes, there is also substantial evidence that services offered in the two different environments vary considerably (Katz, 2011: 490). In this case, the location of a nursing home is central in determining whether the patients access quality health care or not (Turrel, 2001: 27). For instance, as opposed to nursing homes, hospitals enjoy a lot of skills from clinical nurse specialists, specialist nurse practitioners, and link nurses. Additionally, there are also the development nurses that play the role of informing nursing practice (Cherry and Jacob, 2016:367). However, these skills may be inaccessible to nursing homes especially when the homes are located in very remote areas. According to Turrel (2001:25), nursing homes provide better physical environment compared to the geriatric hospital wards. The former favorably cater for the patient's personal choices. Nevertheless, the aspect of the physical environment for both aspects may differ from one state to the other. For instance, the Royal Commission of United Kingdom noted that although the nursing care homes facilities and amenities did not meet the national standard, there was a notable improvement in the same (Turrel, 2001:25). Therefore, Turrel (2001:26) identifies the markers of quality nursing home care that include and not limited to; access to rehabilitation therapists and facilities, access to nursing care, access medical care, documentation and assessment of a patient, and prescription practice. On the contrary, older people that reside in nursing care homes suffer from numerous conditions that may be poorly managed. Conditions such as dementia, incontinence, diabetes, and other cognitive impairments require particular expertise for effective management (Morley et al. 2014: 309). Despite the notion that the availability of such specialists in nursing care homes could prevent hospitalization by a larger percentage, the number is inadequate (Graverholt, Forsetlund, and Jamtvedt, 2014:36). In other words, the specialists are not always available in such environments. Additionally, as earlier mentioned, nursing care homes continue to encounter large numbers elderly admissions. However, the number of the patients versus the health care givers does not match thereby leading to poor quality of health care (Tolson et al. 2011:186). There is, therefore, the need to ensure that there is proper staffing if there is the need to improve the condition of the health care homes. The major p roblem that encompasses the issue of skills is that the nursing home based nurses provide a 24-hour on-site nursing care. However, the number of nurses employed in such facilities is determined by the registering authority when the home is empty and depends on the number of beds (Grabowski et al.2014: 39). In this case, therefore, it is difficult to enroll more nurses even as the level of dependency in the nursing care homes increases. The rationale is that there is the problem of enforcing the changes that may facilitate the increase of the number of the trained nursing staff. In conclusion, nursing care homes are better alternatives for the elderly. However, one cannot dismiss the fact that there is the need to enhance the conditions of the homes' facilities and amenities to ensure that the services are effective. Similarly, there is the need to ensure that the environment is equipped with specialized nursing skills to cater for diverse health, psychological, physical and other needs of the patients. Additionally, the improvement of services and staffs in the nursing care homes is a critical approach that seeks to balance the pressure of the increased homes' admissions. Essentially, nursing care homes significantly reduce the rate of elderly admission and readmissions in hospitals. The outcome can be considered to be positive in that the elderly patients are entitled to some freedom (that includes movement and unlimited association with family members, relatives and friends). Hence, this helps reduce such factors as depression, anxiety, stress or loneline ss that in most cases lead to health deterioration. It is thus evident that nursing homes are the most suitable places for the older people so long as proper improvements in the facilities are implemented. References Cherry, B. and Jacob, S.R., (2016). Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, management. Elsevier Health Sciences. Grabowski, D.C., OMalley, A.J., Afendulis, C.C., Caudry, D.J., Elliot, A. and Zimmerman, S., (2014). Culture change and nursing home quality of care. The Gerontologist, 54(Suppl_1), pp.S35-S45. Graverholt, B., Forsetlund, L. and Jamtvedt, G., (2014). Reducing hospital admissions from nursing homes: a systematic review. BMC health services research, 14(1), p.36. Katz, P.R., (2011). An international perspective on long term care: focus on nursing homes. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 12(7), pp.487-492. Morley, J.E., Caplan, G., Cesari, M., Dong, B., Flaherty, J.H., Grossberg, G.T., Holmerova, I., Katz, P.R., Koopmans, R., Little, M.O. and Martin, F., (2014). International survey of nursing home research priorities. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 15(5), pp.309-312. Rolland, Y., Tolson, D., Morley, J.E. and Vellas, B., (2014). The International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG) nursing home initiative. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 15(5), pp.307-308. Spector, W.D., Limcangco, R., Williams, C., Rhodes, W. and Hurd, D., (2013). Potentially avoidable hospitalizations for elderly long-stay residents in nursing homes. Medical care, 51(8), pp.673-681. Tolson, D., Rolland, Y., Andrieu, S., Aquino, J.P., Beard, J., Benetos, A., Berrut, G., Coll-Planas, L., Dong, B., Forette, F. and Franco, A., (2011). International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics: A global agenda for clinical research and quality of care in nursing homes. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 12(3), pp.184-189. Turrell, A. (2001). Nursing homes: a suitable alternative to hospital care for older people in the UK?. Age and Ageing, 30(suppl_3), 24-32.