The Aged Population in the United States - Research Proposal Example

Rethink drink

Overview of the population

The aged population in the United States and the world keeps growing and their needs as well. The aged population consists of people above 65 years of age. Research has shifted towards ways of extending lifespan and improving the quality of life in our later years; thus, the aged population is projected to double to 98million in 2060. Healthcare researchers and policymakers focus on extending the life of the aged population through research. Aging adults experience a higher risk of chronic illnesses such as heart-related conditions, strokes, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer's. The aged population has poor health, and unique care needs thus need excellent health care services. The aged population has comorbid health conditions such as heart conditions along with diabetes, arthritis, and strokes. Comorbid conditions complicate treatment and the patient's symptoms, thus essential to diagnose and treat. Homelessness crisis of the aged is also increasing in the United States, and the aged are in homeless shelters are growing, and they are forecasted to increase from 2600 in 2017 to 6900 by 2030 (Shinn et al., 2007). An increase in older adults' homelessness is linked to limited subsidized housing for the elderly population, the overall aging US population, and the increased loss of pensions (Crane et al., 2005; Dietz & Wright, 2005). These aged adults in homeless shelters eat and drink unhealthy; therefore, a plan is required to educate the homeless aged population about health risks and conditions.

The vulnerability of the aged population to many chronic and terminal illnesses raises a concern to educate them about healthy eating habits, mainly the use of drinks. They require efficient teaching to understand that healthy diets contribute to their health. This teaching plan will target the aged population in homeless shelters, aiming to educate them about healthy nutrition, how unhealthy some drinks are, and why they should be avoided. This teaching will inform the aged in homeless shelters on how to choose healthy beverages, primarily based on the number of calories.

Individual healthcare teaching focuses entirely on the one patient providing patient-centered education. It is essential since it exhausts the treatment and gives full attention and lessons to individuals maximizing their learning. It offers more patient satisfaction because their needs are directly addressed, a better quality of healthcare. After all, the nurse is only focused on one patient, and all the patient’s needs are addressed with ample time. However, it is monotonous and demotivating because of a similar monotonous routine. The patient might lose hope because they are not convinced that other people are going through their conditions. On the other hand, group teaching encourages the patients because they relate and share their experiences, thus giving each other hope.

Additionally, group teaching is more lively as many patients are engaged to participate and share their experiences, thus encouraging each other. It enables the nurse to cover a lot of teaching within a short duration. Both types of lessons are vital, but group teaching is more effective in educating aged adults.

Teaching preparations included researching to understand drinks, their classification, and their impact on health. We also studied the target population to come up with content and materials relevant to the community. We prepared for the teaching by involving health expertise and nutrition, who advised us on the appropriate education and provided teaching materials. Resources that we utilized include visual aids to enhance learning, technology to teach and monitor progress, internet for additional educational resources, and books to access previous research. Preparing for school is essential as it provides a clear plan and goals for learning.

Population needs

Learning needs were identified through observation, interviews, and the use of secondary data. We observed the population habits, lifestyle, and nutrition to develop a pattern and information about their health problems. We found the aged population in New York City in homeless shelters with preexisting comorbidities and concluded that they had nutrition issues. Most of them had health-related problems, including diabetes, cardiac conditions, and strokes due to poor nutrition and unhealthy habits. Their eating and drinking habits were poor because they chose fast foods and drinks instead of healthy food and beverages.

Additionally, statistical records indicated the change in the number of aged people in homeless shelters with health conditions and the kind of lifestyle the aged have. Previous research suggests that unhealthy eating habits and lifestyles contribute to comorbid conditions, especially heart-related problems, strokes, and diabetes. Most aged people in homeless shelters die out of chronic illnesses. Interviews conducted to a sample population representing the aged population in New York indicated poor eating habits amongst the aged population in homeless shelters with comorbid conditions as they were questioned about the type of food, drinks, and overall lifestyle. The kind of data collected entailed meals taken by the population, drinks, their knowledge about meals and beverages, their exercise habits, and the frequency, which indicated the need for learning about healthy diets.

The goal is to educate the aged population with comorbidities in homeless shelters on healthy and unhealthy drinks, along with their impacts.

Objectives:

• By the end of the lesson, the population will be able to explain the difference between healthy and unhealthy drinks according to calories. In Bloom’s taxonomy, this objective represents the understanding level in the hierarchy, where comparison and demonstration of facts are applied, such as differentiating characteristics of healthy and unhealthy drinks.
• By the end of the lesson, the population will be able to explain the impacts of unhealthy drinks on the body. In Bloom’s taxonomy, this objective represents the application level in the hierarchy. A relationship between unhealthy drinks and related health problems is relevant to educate them about the impacts of unhealthy diets.
• By the end of the lesson, the population will be able to convert their unhealthy drinks to being healthy. In Bloom's taxonomy, this objective represents the hierarchy's analysis level, where unique communication and abstract relations are derived. Therefore, this level will enable the population to synthesize their knowledge so far and convert their unhealthy drinks to healthy by measuring the amount of calorie intake.
• By the end of the lesson, the population will be able to recognize and identify healthy drinks. This objective is in the remembering level of Bloom's taxonomy, where learners will be required to acknowledge healthy drinks and match them with their meals depending on the time of the day.

Questions addressing learning needs

• How many categories of beverages exist?
• How often and which drinks do you take?
• How many calories are in each drink?
• What is the impact of calories in the body?
• What is a healthy drink?

Educational needs and Incorporating the three domains of learning

We identified educational needs for the group by analyzing the answers to the questions asked. The solutions provided a list of the drinks the group took, at what time, intervals, and how often. These drinks were further analyzed according to their calories and how effective they were during the time of the day of consumption. Inappropriate calories at the improper time of the day indicated a lack of knowledge about drinks, calories they contained, and the most suitable time for taking them. Besides, heart-related diseases prevalence in association with strokes, diabetes, and cancers pointed out that this group lacked awareness of what caused the many comorbidities despite their age vulnerability. Continuous use of inappropriate drinks showed their lack of knowledge in managing their preexisting comorbidities and live healthy lives to prolong their lives. We incorporated Bloom's taxonomy to aid the teaching of the group.

Bloom's taxonomy entails three levels of learning classified into the cognitive domain, affective domain, and sensory domain. These domains explain levels of specificity and complexity of learning. The cognitive domain is the knowledge domain involving mental skills; affective domain entails growth in emotional areas while psychomotor involves growth in physical areas. Cognitive development will be incorporated to educate the aged population with comorbidities in homeless shelters about different types of drinks, differentiate healthy from unhealthy drinks, and the importance of healthy diets. This domain consists of various categories including education, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. This domain will educate them about the existence of multiple beverages, their content, the effects they have on people, why a certain amount of calories should be taken during a particular time of the day, comparing healthy vs. unhealthy drinks and synthesizing them into their daily meals to feed balanced diets. The cognitive domain will create awareness and provide facts and knowledge regarding drinks to the target population to understand why teaching is essential.

The second domain to incorporate will be the affective domain, which will focus on the populations' values, interests, and attitudes of learners. This domain will enable the learners to understand their benefits enabling them to receive the information, respond to it, value it, organize it and characterize it to maximize learning. It enables learners to be attentive and have the willingmess to listen and understand the information being taught. It enhances willingness to respond, participate, attach value to the information, organize it and internalize it for social and physical adjustment. The affective domain prepares the learners to perceive the information positively, be willing to learn and adopt to the change effectively.

The third domain to incorporate is the psychomotor, which enhances physical growth and development. it is significant to incorporate it in the teaching because the ultimate goal is healthy lifestyle for physical improvement. The main focus is health and habits therefore this domain will help improve and change unhealthy habits. We shall incorporate reflex to physical ability to sustain exercise for a certain period of time such as running for twenty minutes every morning to keep fit. Basic fundamental movements and perceptual abilities will be incorporated in learning to enable learners predict impacts of their meals to their health. Skilled movements will enable the learners to adopt to the changes, mke better decisions and achieve more goals. The psychomotor enables the group to adopt to better ways of making their diets, improve their health and manage the comorbidities to prolong their lives. All the three domains of Bloom’s taxonomy will be incorporated to enhance teaching for mental, physical and emotional growth of the aged population in homeless shelters with comorbidities.

The selection of your educational method

When selecting the education method, we considered the objectives of teaching, resources available, content and the learners. For aged population in the homeless shelters to learn about healthy and unhealthy drinks, we mixed several education methods. We utilized presentations,group presentations, excercises, and case study analysis. We mixed the methods to cover every aspect of learning and engage the aged population. Lectures provide adequate knowledge about drinks, their classification and their impact in the body thus a source of knowledge. group presentations will engage the population, enhance them to share experiences, teach each other and encourage each other. Exercises will enhance their participation and enable them to choose healthy habits. Case study analysis enables the aged population to understand previous research about unhealthy drinks and their impacts to people enhancing more understanding. These methods ensure that they understand every teaching they get and are able to apply the healthy diets in their lives.

Technology

We incorporated visual simulations to aid learning of the population. Visual aids promots better understanding of difficult concepts. The aged population take time to understand and require step by step explanation at a slow pace to understand thus making teaching to be challenging. However, use of visual aids will enhance understanding of difficult concepts. Images, charts and models showing amount of calories in drinks, types of drinks, appropriate amount of calories intake according to the time of the day and impacts of unhealthy drinks aid the understanding of the aged population. These charts, models and visual aids will be stuck to the homeless shelters walls to enhance better learning.

Besides, effective assessments will be implemented to keep track of each person’s progress through digital continuous assessments. It enables them to keep records up-to-date and accurately. Assessments give the teacher a better picture about the advancement of the learner and understands them, thus pointing out what the learner is missing. We shall maintain a digital continuous assessment for each adult to monitor and improve their progress.

Prevention level

We shall use the primary and secondary levels of prevention. Primary level improves the overall health of the aged population in homeless shelters preventing development of health related diseases in the healthy population while secondary level of prevention prevents the worsening of aged population with preexisting with comorbidities. The population will be divided into two categories, that is the healthy and those with preexisting comorbidities. The healthy population will be taught how to prevent development of conditions by advising them to choose healthy drinks with moderate sugars and calories, exercise regularly and pay attention to their weight to avoid health related conditions. However, aged people with preexisting comorbidities will undergo secondary prevention to acquire knowledge and skills to manage their existing conditions preventing worsening of the disease, minimize complications and expand their lifespan with the conditions. Teaching will prevent primary and secondary levels in healthy and unhealthy aged adults in homeless shelters.

Age, ethnic and cultural backgrounds consideration

The aged population in homeless shelters with comorbidities has diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds as well as their ages. Teachings include all of them without any discrimination based on their needs. Adults will be classified into healthy and those with comorbidities then further divided according to their ages. The first category is between 65 to 80 years and the second category entails 81 years and beyond. Races, ethnic and culturl background will not be considered because there is no need to, and to promote unity in the homeless shelters of all aged adults.however, the extremely sensitive people will be separated and taught separately for equality and fairness.this teaching considers all the ages, ethnic and cultural groups of the aged population in homeless shelters.

Additionally, group teaching is more lively as many patients are engaged to participate and share their experiences, thus encouraging each other. It enables the nurse to cover a lot of teaching within a short duration. Both types of lessons are vital, but group teaching is more effective in educating aged adults.

Teaching preparations included researching to understand drinks, their classification, and their impact on health. We also studied the target population to come up with content and materials relevant to the community. We prepared for the teaching by involving health expertise and nutrition, who advised us on the appropriate education and provided teaching materials. Resources that we utilized include visual aids to enhance learning, technology to teach and monitor progress, internet for additional educational resources, and books to access previous research. Preparing for school is essential as it provides a clear plan and goals for learning.

Population needs

Learning needs were identified through observation, interviews, and the use of secondary data. We observed the population habits, lifestyle, and nutrition to develop a pattern and information about their health problems. We found the aged population in New York City in homeless shelters with preexisting comorbidities and concluded that they had nutrition issues. Most of them had health-related problems, including diabetes, cardiac conditions, and strokes due to poor nutrition and unhealthy habits. Their eating and drinking habits were poor because they chose fast foods and drinks instead of healthy food and beverages.

Additionally, statistical records indicated the change in the number of aged people in homeless shelters with health conditions and the kind of lifestyle the aged have. Previous research suggests that unhealthy eating habits and lifestyles contribute to comorbid conditions, especially heart-related problems, strokes, and diabetes. Most aged people in homeless shelters die out of chronic illnesses. Interviews conducted to a sample population representing the aged population in New York indicated poor eating habits amongst the aged population in homeless shelters with comorbid conditions as they were questioned about the type of food, drinks, and overall lifestyle. The kind of data collected entailed meals taken by the population, drinks, their knowledge about meals and beverages, their exercise habits, and the frequency, which indicated the need for learning about healthy diets.

The goal is to educate the aged population with comorbidities in homeless shelters on healthy and unhealthy drinks, along with their impacts.

Objectives:

• By the end of the lesson, the population will be able to explain the difference between healthy and unhealthy drinks according to calories. In Bloom’s taxonomy, this objective represents the understanding level in the hierarchy, where comparison and demonstration of facts are applied, such as differentiating characteristics of healthy and unhealthy drinks.
• By the end of the lesson, the population will be able to explain the impacts of unhealthy drinks on the body. In Bloom’s taxonomy, this objective represents the application level in the hierarchy. A relationship between unhealthy drinks and related health problems is relevant to educate them about the impacts of unhealthy diets.
• By the end of the lesson, the population will be able to convert their unhealthy drinks to being healthy. In Bloom's taxonomy, this objective represents the hierarchy's analysis level, where unique communication and abstract relations are derived. Therefore, this level will enable the population to synthesize their knowledge so far and convert their unhealthy drinks to healthy by measuring the amount of calorie intake. Read More