With problems like hearing loss and cognitive skills such as memory loss common in older people, the elderly can often feel dismissed or belittled.
Making a point of listening to them and asking questions rather than giving orders will generally resonate better. People work helping the elderly are often meeting their patients or clients during a challenging transitional period in their lives that sometimes leads to a pessimistic outlook on their futures.
Having a positive disposition can be key when working in aging and helping the seniors you work with stay optimistic can improve their mental and physical health. Nurses, social workers, educators, advocates and more may choose to focus their work on the 65 and older population.
These careers can be both extremely rewarding and equally challenging and for those who wish to make a difference in the lives of others, working with the elderly can be a great fit.
Audiologists are specialists who diagnosis and provide treatment for hearing and balance disorders related to problems with the ears. Typically work environments range from healthcare settings such as hospitals and clinics to educational environments like schools and universities.
Clinical audiologists can concentrate in a variety of specialties including pediatrics, geriatrics, balance, implants, hearing aids, and other auditory processing issues. With the American population of older adults increasing, audiologists have increasing employment opportunities working with the elderly to prevent hearing loss, combat existing hearing problems, and provide better hearing assistance products such as aides and implants.
Certified Nursing Assistants or CNAs provide basic care to patients and assist them in daily activities they may have trouble doing on their own such as bathing and dressing. Although a CNAs responsibilities will change from setting to setting, you will often find them working in nursing homes, patient homes, and care centers for the elderly helping patients complete daily tasks.
Fitness instructors provide personalized training and lead group classes to help seniors meet their health goals.
Often trained to effectively and safely work specifically with the elderly, fitness instructors help their clients feel youthful again by combining behavioral change, motivation, nutrition, and physical training to lose or gain weight, build overall strength, and increase stamina.
Home health aides are trained to assist the elderly in their homes by helping with daily tasks like bathing, cooking, driving, and household chores. Home health aide duties may include monitoring patients and observing physical and mental health, teaching patients to care for themselves, helping family members care for patients in appropriate and safe ways, maintaining a safe and secure patient environment, and recording patient information.
Occupational therapists are specialists who treat injured, ill, disabled, or elderly patients through the therapeutic use of everyday activities. They help patients develop, recover, and improve the skills needed for daily living and working.
Therapists help patients doing daily tasks like washing, dressing, cooking, and eating. Patient advocates for the elderly work to coordinate communication between patients, family members, medical professionals, administrative staff, and health insurance companies to ensure that patients are receiving the best possible healthcare services.
Advocates are responsible for identifying care problems, making referrals to appropriate healthcare services, directing patient questions and complaints, explaining policies, assisting patients in choosing doctors, discussing treatment options, and even accompanying patients to doctor appointments. There is no specific education or training needed to become a personal care aide, just a dedication to the proper care of their patient.
While certification is offered, it is not mandatory and work is generally supervised by a licensed medical professional such as a nurse or social worker. Physical therapists diagnose and treat patients who have health conditions that limit their ability to move and perform everyday activities. Therapists may design custom exercise plans that work to keep the patient as physically fit and active as possible.
RNs working in geriatrics may have a general nursing degree or may hold advanced degrees or certification in geriatric nursing. Experience abroad can be either clinical or research based. Geriatrics is an established speciality in many countries, and other countries, keen to realise the benefits that a geriatric service can bring, are eager to develop services.
Geriatric medicine is now rightly considered an important aspect for undergraduate education. Therefore, there are lots of opportunities for teaching medical students, ranging from lectures to large audiences to small group bedside teaching. Geriatrics forms a large part of Foundation Training and Core Medical Training, so teaching opportunities exist for these groups too.
Geriatrics has not traditionally required a higher degree or a track record in academic research in order to progress to consultant, as it is an applied speciality which places emphasis on clinical experience and skills. There are, however, a number of internationally-renowned centres of excellence in ageing research in the UK and the number of funding opportunities for research in the arena is expanding exponentially. Basic biomedical research, social science research, health services research and first and second translational gap research, related to ageing are all undergoing significant growth.
I enjoy working with patients. Each patient has a unique story, and a unique set of problems, with their own aims for their health. Working with them to manage their health is immensely rewarding.
I value the opportunities I have to work within the wider multidisciplinary team, and with other specialities. I feel that together we are able to create real impact for patients and the learning I take away from the experiences is valuable.
Attitudes towards older people and geriatric medicine mean that sometimes engaging other specialities can be difficult. Orchestrating complex interventions and support for older patients with frailty can be quite challenging, frustrating everyone when things take longer than expected.
Some aspects of hospitals are not always well designed for patients with frailty or those with dementia. Some people mistakenly see geriatrics as a depressing specialty, dealing with patients who are too confused to know what is happening, and for whom treatments are limited. Treating the very old, we do deal with end-of-life issues regularly. Most geriatric medicine is carried out within the hospital setting.
The traditional location would be a ward dedicated to geriatric medicine, with dedicated outpatient clinics. Community roles exist which involve working in clinics in community settings, meeting patients in their own homes, and visiting care homes to review patients.
Spend some time with your local geriatrics team. Speak to lots of people in the speciality most people working in the speciality are very friendly. Students are also taught how to evaluate their own practice and intervention techniques.
This is the average geriatric social worker salary as well, since the BLS considers geriatric social workers as part of the health care social worker group. Increased demand for health care and social services will drive employment growth, but the prospects of each specialization, such as geriatric social workers, will vary.
Courses that may be helpful in this field include clinical social work modalities, family dynamics and social work in medical settings. Classes that focus on the physical, mental, emotional, financial and social issues associated with aging are also important.
Students may wish to find MSW programs that provide a selection of gerontology-focused classes, or an academic concentration in gerontological social work. Even if a program does not have many gerontology-specific courses, thinking proactively about the therapeutic modalities and social work concepts that might be most useful in your work with geriatric clients, and taking courses that focus on these areas, may help you prepare.
This is a technique that I have used a lot in the hospital setting as well as my current job. Burns also recommends students advocate for the types of field placements they want during their MSW program. Stiles similarly advises social work students to gain relevant internship experiences during their graduate education, and to engage in extracurricular and volunteer work to interact with aging populations.
Stiles and Burns also explained how the field of gerontological social work requires a degree of emotional preparation and skill in talking about weighty or disconcerting issues such as death and terminal illness.
Some of our participants think more about their deaths than others, yet we discuss it with all of them. Stiles advised social work students to be self-aware and open to evaluating and changing their preconceived notions about older populations and geriatric care.
Those who enter geriatric social work need to know about the issues that aging populations encounter and have relevant experience working with aging populations. Despite these challenges, however, gerontological social workers experience the satisfaction of granting a voice to a marginalized population in need, and also enjoy deep and rewarding connections with clients who have led rich and intriguing lives, and who deeply appreciate the compassionate care that gerontological social workers provide.
Geriatric social workers support clients and their families through a combination of psychosocial assessments, care coordination, counseling and therapeutic work, crisis management and interventions, and discharge planning.
We test for changes in cognition and mood every six months. Burns also noted that interacting closely with clients and connecting with them regularly allows her to evaluate their emotional and cognitive health at any point, and to convey any concerning changes to the treatment team. It also means participating in or facilitating meetings between different providers to discuss patient treatment and health outcomes; conveying the concerns and desires of the patient and his or her family to the teams involved in their care; and connecting clients and their caretakers with resources within the larger community that may provide additional support.
Gerontological social workers provide counseling and therapy to clients to help them cope with the psychological, emotional, social and financial challenges that come with aging. During sessions with clients, social workers may employ a variety of psychotherapeutic techniques to help them manage negative emotions, set objectives for life improvement, address behavioral problems or psychological barriers to meeting certain goals, and where applicable make end-of-life preparations.
When working with the families of their clients, gerontological social workers may help them manage the difficulties they may encounter caring for an aging loved one, including strains on financial resources and relationships, and processing grief and other emotions around loss.
Specific therapeutic techniques gerontological social workers may use in their work with clients and families may include cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy, problem-solving therapy, motivational interviewing and mindfulness-based stress reduction.
For more information about these and other therapeutic modalities social workers may use when providing clinical therapy to clients, see our Guide to Clinical Social Work or check out the National Association of Social Workers website.
Depending on their role and work setting, gerontological social workers may encounter a variety of client crises. Some clients may struggle with depression, suicidal desires, acute dementia that renders them unable to care for themselves, family conflicts about treatment decisions, traumatic experiences that require immediate support, or mental or emotional disorders that pose a danger to themselves or others. Specializing in geriatric care is a natural intersection for personal and professional growths.
Elderly adults, by nature, are not shallow people — their life experiences run deep, likely having taught them many lessons in the process. They have seen war, economic rises and falls, the lifecycle of a career, love, and loss. While assisting in their medical care, the relationships that can form create opportunities to learn from their stories and encourage personal growth.
That maturity easily bleeds into professional growth, as caring for an elderly mind and body can drive you to be more gentle than you thought possible, increase your efficiency and skill conducting procedures, inspire greater patience, and create a more profound sense of gratitude for your own life and loved ones. It is this mutually beneficial dynamic that makes working with elderly adults so gratifying, and the Allen School of Health Sciences offers multiple programs to help you break into this respected healthcare professions, among many others.
With the changing demographics in the US, the demand for geriatric healthcare professionals is increasing.
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