Age-Related Changes In Constipation Risk: Strategies For Assessment, Prevention, And Management (essay).

What Age-Related Changes Contribute To Increased Risk Of Constipation?

What Strategies Can The Nurse Use To Assess, Prevent And Manage Constipation?

How Would Attending a Meaningful Leisure Activity, Such As The Men’s Shed, Enhance The Physical And Psychological Health Of Older Men?

How Old People Find Out About Services Which Are Available Through My Aged Care

Majority of old Australians opt to stay at their own homes with or without support because first they are familiar with the environment and can be very stressful to them and it can take time for them to adjust to the new environment (Eric et al., 2014, p.1825). Old people prefer staying in their homes where they are comfortable and familiar with surroundings and near people whom they love like family members and friends. The second advantage which makes old people opt to remain at their homes is personalized care (Clegg, Young, Iliffe, Rikkert & Rockwood, 2013, p.752). This is because receiving care from your own home means that the care worker will only be focused on you only and not multiple residents at once. As compared to nursing care homes where several individuals can be attended by one care worker, staying at home is costly which most older people of Australia cannot afford based on the fact that they are not employed they have to depend on their savings and government support (Kim, Jeong & Park, 2013). The second challenge which is faced by this individuals is that they are somehow isolated by their family members (Feng, Liu & Zhu, 2014, p.1699).

Old people can access information about available service in My Aged Care in various ways. An individual can register into the website to receive non-urgent services (Lovelock & Patterson, 2015). The support team of the website can organize referral forms to be given to them which helps them register or direct the client to call or send messages to My Aged Care on 1 800 200 422 for registration. However, for unknown reasons, many Australian old people are not able to talk to My Aged Care through the phone, so it is the role of the organization to send specific groups of individuals to them to ensure that they are still able to access these services (Schön, 2017). The organization sends this individual when the old person has some medical situation which can’t allow them to talk over the phone like earing problems or the person belongs to the aboriginal community who due to the past experience in their lives are not comfortable talking over the phone. These agents can also be sent to remote areas where people do not have access to phone and language barrier where a community only understand their local language.

Organization Applicable For Older People

Organizations like the Alzheimer’s Australia have been of great help to old people living in Australia since not all of them are able to cater for themselves due to harsh financial situations. Family members and friends sometimes volunteer themselves to help old people, but more help is required especially for old people who have disabilities and mental health problems. Alzheimer’s Australia has helped old people in various number of methods. For older adults living with mental disorders, these organizations send a number of several healthcare professionals to homes to attend this individual. Alzheimer’s Australia has also established nursing care homes in which old people can be taken good care by professional care workers. To control infections like obesity Alzheimer’s Australia has organized physical activities programs which ensures that these people actively participate in them to keep fit (Wilson et al., 2015, p.133). Alzheimer’s Australia also takes the role of fighting or the rights of the old people and ensure that they are not mistreated by others in the society. This organization has ensured that healthcare facilities are made available to old people by building hospitals so that they can access healthcare attention fast whenever they are unwell.

Leisure activities and hobbies are very essential specifically for the elderly. Activities like attending the men’s shed are not fun, but they can also refresh the mind and body of the elderly. It has scientifically been proven that spending time doing the things we enjoy helps delay signs of aging and the pleasure of participating in this activities leads to positive feelings which are significant in fighting some health complications like blood pressure (Milligan et al., 2013). Leisure activities enhance the physical health of men by improving their flexibility. The activities which old men engage in in men’s shed which involves art work stretches their muscle making them flexible. Been active in the activities performed in men’s shade improves their immune system. This is because physical activities help prevent and control some chronic infections such as diabetes and heart complications. These activities enable old men to enhance the quality of life they live. Many leisure activities challenge our mental abilities, and they enhance our problem solving skills thus men’s shed activities improves the memory of these old men. This activity offers mental stimulations after an old man completes a task. Psychological health of an individual is boosted as this activities helps reduce stress (Cordier & Wilson, 2013, p.483).

How Attending Meaningful Leisure Activities like Men’s Shed Enhance the Physical and Psychological Health of Older Men

Age related factor which contributes to constipation includes poor diet. Most elderly in Australia do not engage themselves in physical activities which can contribute to constipation. Old people who are widowed or single seems to lack appetite and thus leading to over use of convenient foods which are usually low in fiber (Coggrave & Norton, 2013). As some people ages, they may experience loss of teeth which makes it hard for them to have regular meals and thus they are forced to depend on soft and processed foods which are low in fiber. Lack of physical exercise is another major cause of constipation among the elderly. Healthcare professional advice old people to eat more fiber by taking plenty of vegetables and fruits as fiber helps form soft and bulky stools. Elderly are also advised to drink a lot of water and take fluids to prevent constipation. Elderly should participate in the physical exercise as it helps digestive system making a person stay active and health. The government should make sure that healthcare services are made available to the old people so that in case they are suffering from constipation disorders they can get the right medication and advices on how to go about it.

Safe environment games are associated with a number of risks and hazard. The first risk is cyberbullying. This happens because a person is able to escape real life into an online life where no one knows who they are, what they look like and where they work or school. Players take advantage of this to grief other players making the game boring. In some cases grieving turns into cyberbullying which occurs in the form of whispering to a player directly with harmful and hurtful messages or spamming global chat channel with abusive comments about a victim. Safe environments games also contribute to privacy problems (Renn, 2017). This happens because players do not create usernames with their real names and they don’t give correct information about their age and location. This online gaming nature allows cybercriminals to be able to manipulate chats and conversations.

Australian aged care sector has been facing a lot of challenges and difficulties which are attracting a lot of healthcare professional into the sector. Some of these challenges includes high employees turnover which leads to shortage of staff in the nursing care homes and thus elderly do not have enough staff to take care of them. Most staffs who are working in this sector have a negative attitudes towards their work and thus they are not able to deliver quality services to old people in Australia (Lovelock & Patterson, 2015). Due to increased need for dementia care for older people many graduates are thus attracted to this sector. Aged care sector is facing challenges in attracting young graduate’s healthcare professional. Aged care sector is trying to improve its services and make them accessible to all the older people in Australia in remote and rural areas thus it needs a lot of staff to be able to offer services to the old people (Chenoweth, Merlyn, Jeon, Tait & Duffield, 2014). However, a number of strategies have been implemented to overcome the challenges faced in the aged care sector. For nursing care homes with an inadequate number of care givers, the government has ensured employment of more professional healthcare workers to those organizations to ensure that care givers are not overworked.

References

Chenoweth, L., Merlyn, T., Jeon, Y.H., Tait, F. and Duffield, C., 2014. Attracting and retaining qualified nurses in aged and dementia care: outcomes from an A ustralian study. Journal of Nursing Management, 22(2), pp.234-247.

Clegg, A., Young, J., Iliffe, S., Rikkert, M.O. and Rockwood, K., 2013. Frailty in elderly people. The lancet, 381(9868), pp.752-762.

Coggrave, M. and Norton, C., 2013. Management of faecal incontinence and constipation in adults with central neurological diseases. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (12).

Cordier, R. and Wilson, N.J., 2013. Community-based Men's Sheds: promoting male health, wellbeing and social inclusion in an international context. Health promotion international, 29(3), pp.483-493.

Eric De Jonge, K., Jamshed, N., Gilden, D., Kubisiak, J., Bruce, S.R. and Taler, G., 2014. Effects of home?based primary care on Medicare costs in high?risk elders. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 62(10), pp.1825-1831.

Feng, W., Liu, R. and Zhu, M., 2014. Fall detection for elderly person care in a vision-based home surveillance environment using a monocular camera. Signal, Image and Video Processing, 8(6), pp.1129-1138.onments. Personal and ubiquitous computing, 17(8), pp.1699-1707.

Kim, S.C., Jeong, Y.S. and Park, S.O., 2013. RFID-based indoor location tracking to ensure the safety of the elderly in smart home envir

Lovelock, C. and Patterson, P., 2015. Services marketing. Pearson Australia.

Milligan, C., Dowrick, C., Payne, S., Hanratty, B., Irwin, P., Neary, D. and Richardson, D., 2013. Men's Sheds and other gendered interventions for older men: improving health and wellbeing through social activity-a systematic review and scoping of the evidence base. Lancaster: Lancaster University Centre for Ageing Research.

Renn, O., 2017. Risk governance: coping with uncertainty in a complex world. Routledge.

Schön, D.A., 2017. The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Routledge.      

Wilson, N.J., Cordier, R., Doma, K., Misan, G. and Vaz, S., 2015. Men's Sheds function and philosophy: towards a framework for future research and men's health promotion. Health promotion journal of Australia, 26(2), pp.133-141.