Health Promotion in Older Adults with Diabetes - Essay Example

"Health Promotion in Older Adults with Diabetes" is a great example of a paper on diabetes mellitus.
Diabetes is a disease that affects people of different ages but older adults mostly suffer from type 1 diabetes. Diabetes in patients with advanced ages needs a lot of cautionary medical care as it is associated with heart diseases, stroke, vascular complications as well as affecting the treatment of other ailments. Studies indicate that there are high chances that the above complications can result in the death of the patient and thus the need for intervention (American Diabetes Association, 2012). The studies also indicate that diabetic cases among adults older than sixty-five years could increase by triple-fold in the next five years if interventions are not made. Diabetes in older adults can be managed by developing methods to improve the health and the lifestyle of older adults suffering from diabetes. This proposal gives one of the possible interventions that can reverse the trends noted in the studies and prolong the lives of diabetic seniors.   

The relevance of the Project

This study is important to the students as they will acquire practical diabetes management skills and deepen their knowledge of diabetes as a disease and its associated complications. This project will target older adults in the population because they represent the highest number of patients with diabetes. Management of older patients with diabetes presents several challenges that are partially contributed by another factor such as social factors, age and lifestyle (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2014). These challenges will present opportunities for students to develop and improve their nursing management skills. Exposure to the treatment of other diseases will also be an advantage to the students. They will also be able to contribute towards the reduction of diabetic cases among adults above sixty-five years of age. The students will be able to apply the knowledge and skills acquired during their future practice in any institution or medical facility they will be offering their services.

Interventions/ Solutions in health promotion

The already existing literature indicates that over 85 per cent of diabetes in older adults is caused by lifestyle behaviours (American Diabetes Association, 2012).  Creation of an outreach program that encourages individuals with diabetes type 2 to incorporate regular exercise as part of their treatment can be used as an intervention. This means that adults over 65 years are put on a physiotherapy program that will assist in lowering glucose and lipid levels in the blood (Food and Drug Administration, 2015). Centres for this program can be set up at strategic points within communities and medical staff deployed to manage the patients.

Methodology

The methodology for this project will involve identifying hospitals and nursing homes with wards for diabetic patients. Once these are identified, a group of the target population, who are diabetic patients over 65 years of age, will be identified and information and data will be collected from them. This information will include blood sugar levels for the patients under the program. This data will be collected during every visit. Patients who are following the correct administration of insulin and the same kind of feeding program will be considered. Blood sugar levels will be used to monitor the efficacy of the outreach program.