The State of Aging and Health in America - Essay Example

In recent decades, most American citizens are enjoying unparalleled opportunities for successful aging as the average lifespan continues to increase due to a decline in coronary heart disease mortality coupled with the adoption of high-functional lifestyles (Pollack, 2015). However, research is consistent that the aging of the American population has widespread implications for the county’s public health, social, and health systems (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013). IAvailable literature demonstrates that there is no universally agreed-upon definition of aging owing to the underlying individual, cultural, country, and gender-specific considerations related to the term (Fernandez, 2015).

However, aging has been described as the biological process that triggers a reduction in an individual’s functional capacity (Conley & Pierre, 2014), the universal biological shifts that occur with age and are unaltered by disease and environmental influences (Yeh, 2015), or as the age-dependent or age-progressive decline in intrinsic physiological function and the subsequent increase in age-specific mortality rate (Flatt, 2012). It should be noted that while the aging process is not affected by disease and environmental influences, the process of aging is to a large extent influenced by the effects of environmental, lifestyle, and disease states.

 Gerontological nursing has been described as a domain of the nursing profession that is focused on the health and wellbeing of the elderly, implying that the scope of practice for gerontological nursing professionals encompasses all older adults from the time of old age (65 + years) until death. Gerontological nurses, according to Conley and Pierre (2014), “work with healthy elderly persons in their communities, acutely ill elders requiring hospitalization and treatment, and chronically ill or disabled elders in long-term care facilities, skilled care, home care, and hospice” (p. 9). In essence, therefore, gerontological nursing advocates for the healthcare needs of the elderly through the provision of an inclusive perspective relating to the care of older adults.