Health Strategies: The Concepts of Healthy Aging

Introduction

Healthy aging is a lifelong guide of physical and spiritual wellbeing. It gives hope to older adults to add years to life and can be attained through healthy living. Healthy aging enable the older people to be an active part of society. Purpose of this paper is to define healthy aging, successful aging and aging well, outline the misconceptions of aging, state various factors contributing to healthy aging, review of assisting clients in incorporating healthy aging principles, describe nursing strategies to maintain healthy aging as well as strategies for personal healthy aging, and conclude the paper along with summary.

Content

Healthy aging is defined 'as the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enable wellbeing in older age' (WHO, 2018). Flood, (as cited in Elo, 2015) defined successful aging 'as the individual's perceived satisfaction in adapting to the physical and functional changes of ageing, while experiencing connectedness and a sense of meaning/ purpose in life'. Aging well is defined 'as having three components- a low risk of disease and disease-related disability, high mental and physical engagement and an active engagement with life' (Joseph, 2010).

Misconceptions of Aging

Queensland Government, (2012) suggested various misconceptions of aging. First misconception is that elderly people are all the same and are boring. Second, all older people are having poor health, ill or disabled. Third, getting older means becoming disabled and frail. Fourth, elderly people are senile, having memory loss and lack mental sharpness. Fifth, health care cost is rising due to increase in number of elderly people. Sixth, elderly people are financial burden on society and their increase number will be ruinous to the economy. Seventh, older people are considered as no longer productive after the retirement. Eighth, Elderly people are lonely, depressed, sad and withdrawn from society. Ninth, older adults are incapable to learn or change. Tenth, elderly people are unable and unlikely to make close and sexual relationships. Last but not the least, older adults are more prone to be robbed and can become victims of criminal assault.

Factors Contributing To Healthy Aging

Liu & Su, (2017) suggested the combined effects of physical functioning, cognitive, emotional health, and presence of comorbidities among elder adults affect their health. Other factors like, age, gender, education, economic status, health behaviours and social participation strengthen the health. Manasatchakun et al. (2016) described the various factors that contribute to healthy aging among older adults. These are residential area, gender, education level, income level, age, marital status, underlying disease, disability, social support from family and healthcare provider, and perceived meaningfulness in life (p. 369-84).

Assist Client In Incorporating Healthy Aging

Healthy aging can be incorporated in the elder people by providing age-friendly environments and opportunities to make healthy choices. Always enjoy the elderly diversity, invalidate ageism and decrease inequality among them. Participation of elderly people should be supported and considered important. This will enable them to be self-sufficient and improve their quality of life. Educate the older people about skills of self-care and enable them to learn activities to stay healthy like exercise, dancing. Self-help groups, family support should be available that provide physical and emotional support. Avail safe, attractive places to walk, accessible transportation, senior-friendly restaurants and grocery stores that will reduce disparities (Brief).

Nursing Strategies

Nurses must assess the condition of elderly people by collecting complete history and thoroughly examine them. Functional assessment should also be done to assess the ability to carry out tasks (Touhy & Jett, 2016, p. 74-86). Nurse should improve the physical activities of seniors by active, passive exercise, mobilization. Physical inactivity could result into premature death, chronic diseases, illness and disability and decrease quality of life (British Columbia. Ministry of Health, 2005).

Nurse should give healthy diet to the elder people. Healthy diet would decrease the risk of developing heart disease, respiratory disease, cancer and improve quality of life (British Columbia. Ministry of Health, 2005). Nurse should maintain skin hygiene and inform older adults about skin hydration and use of UVR protection to maintain skin integrity which delay aging by protecting the infection via skin barrier (Blume-Peyatavi et al., 2016).

Nurse should screen the elder people for depression, dementia, communicable and hearing disorders. Older people should be immunized to prevent invasive pneumococcal infections (Davidhizar, Eshleman, & Moody, 2002). Nurse should educate the elder adults about age-friendly communities like, self-help groups that will provide psychological and emotional support to them.

Strategies For Personal Healthy Aging

Healthy aging can be attained by healthy living and healthy lifestyles. There are many strategies which helps to maintain health in aging. Healthy eating is the main strategy to attain liberty, improve their quality of life, and decrease risk of getting chronic illness such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, heart disease, respiratory disease and cancer. Physical activities like, exercise, yoga, meditation also promote healthy aging. It improve wellbeing by strengthening the muscles, bones, joints and enhance the quality of life.

Prevention from injuries especially unintentional such as fall, accidents has serious consequences to elderly people. Education regarding risk factors related to unintentional injuries and prevention strategies could be essential to eliminate or minimize risk of getting injury. Cessation of smoking and minimum intake of alcohol is also important strategy to prevent death and disease. Smoking and excess alcohol intake could affect the respiratory system, liver and other body organs which ultimately deteriorate the health.

Skin care and personal hygiene should be maintained to prevent the illness and improve health during later life. Decrease intake of sugar in diet also leads to healthy aging as more sugar intake decrease the size of telomeres and promote aging. Social support is another strategy that enhance mental and physical wellbeing, increase life satisfaction, and prevent depression, isolation and premature death due to suicidal attempts in older adults. Proper health check-up, getting healthcare facilities and follow up is also crucial to sustain health and prevent chance of occurrence of illness.

Conclusion

Healthy aging is an opportunity for the elder adult to maintain their good health and take an active part in society. In this paper, I have discussed about healthy aging, definition of healthy aging, successful aging and aging well, outlined the misconceptions of aging, explained the factors contributing to healthy aging, described how to assist the client to attain health in aging, nursing strategies for elder client to maintain health in aging and strategies for personal healthy aging has been described. At last, it can be said that aging is neither a burden nor decrease person's ability to contribute to society. Elder people can contribute to society through healthy aging.