To me, one of the most interesting borders is age. There are
many milestones that a person reaches as they grow older. From celebrating a
Sweet Sixteen, to legally drinking at 21, and then turning the big five zero,
your age is a very important number. Through my experience working in a
hospital setting and my future goals as a health care professional I have
become increasingly aware of a concept called ageism. Ageism is the
discrimination of a person based solely on his or her chronological age. I
first heard of ageism in a psych class that I took and I was surprised that it
is so rampant, even in today’s society.
After further research on ageism, I
found many shocking articles. The first one was a famous psych article that
focuses on the treatment of elderly people in both a hospital setting and in
real life situations. In Todd Nelson’s journal article, Ageism: Prejudice
Against our Feared Future Self, he explains to the reader the causes of
ageism. First, he states that ageism is more common that one would think. He
claims that we judge everyone we interact with and think about what age they
probably are. He states that ageism was not a form of discrimination until the
Industrial Revolution. Before this time older people were viewed as wise and sources
of important information from the past. After the regulations were changed for
jobs post Industrial Revolution, older adults were viewed as slower than a
younger adult, sometimes even referred to as a nuisance. Nelson then explains
elder abuse and the lack of geriatric specialists in the United States. After I
read this article I was curious if ageism was a worldwide discrimination or
just rampant in the United States.
I found the picture above at the
top of an aritcle written by a UK newpaper, The Telegraph. The title of
the article is called “Nurses ‘too busy’ to help elderly patients with basic
care.” I thought that the picture had the complete opposite message than the
article. In the picture the nurse looks kind and attentive to the older male
patients needs. However, according to the article it a common trend that nurses
either ignore their patients or do not have enough time to properly care for
them in the way that is needed. I thought this article was interesting because
it proved that discrimination based on age is a world wide problem, not just a
problem in the United States.
Sources:
It does seem to be true that we judge people depending on their ages whether mean to or not. Sadly, I do believe that many nurses do not give elderly patients the attention that they need deserve just from witnessing the nurses in action when I've visited my grandmother in a nursing home. Hopefully ageism will become more known and people will become more aware so that they will stop treating people in different ways depending on their ages.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this post, the well know aphorism of "age is just a number" came to mind. If this saying were really the case then discrimination among the different ages classes should not exist at all. Here is just another cause of how true actions and what people say can contradict themselves. Furthermore, if age was taken out of the equation then all of the media, advertisements and commercials would have nothing to base the promotion on as beautiful, young people are always displayed. This demonstrates how age really is a factor not only in the healthcare system but integrated into everyone's life.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad but in some cases it is true. I know several people who used to work in nursing homes some years back and some of the stores they told me about staff who didn't want to deal with cranky patients so they ignored their calls or not wanting to help residents to the bathroom were disheartening to hear. I personally feel that if you don't want to do your job and do it right, then you should find somewhere else to work. These people don't deserve to be treated this way...no one does.
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