Examine the life experiences of aging itself and more specifically, aging in US society.

Examine the life experiences of aging itself and more specifically, aging in US society.

Interview of an Older Adult

Purpose of Assignment: The purpose of this assignment is to examine the life experiences of aging itself and more specifically, aging in US society. The assignment is designed to provide the student with the opportunity to reflect upon their own thoughts, attitudes and beliefs about aging and develop empathy for the experience of aging in America and apply those reflections to clinical practice in the care of the older adult. This assignment will address course SLOs #1, #5, and #6.

Procedure for Completing Assignment:

1. Identify an individual over the age of 65 who is willing to be interviewed for this assignment. This person can be a patient, relative or friend. Because the information that you are seeking can be reflective, thoughtful and possibly intimate, discuss this assignment with the individual carefully to determine that the individual is willing to engage in the interview. Expect the interview to last one hour.

2. Qualitative information: Provide a thoughtful and thorough written description of the interviewee. Use language which is rich in description as an introduction to the interviewee. Feel free to include interviewee’s thoughts an opinions.

3. Quantitative information: (DO NOT USE THE PATIENT’S NAME, ADDRESS, ZIPCODE, DATE OF BIRTH, PHONE NUMBER, SSN OR ANY IDENTYFING INFORMATION. Interviews that are submitted with any of this information will be returned to the student unread and ungraded. There will be no opportunity to resubmit the paper in this instance.

a. age in years

b. gender

c. race/ethnicity

d. occupational history

e. position in family of origin

f. educational background

g. marital or partner history

h. religious beliefs

i. cultural influences

j. living arrangements

k. transportation

l. abilities and support systems

4. POSSIBLE Interview Topics: (You may decide to ask more questions, ask these questions in a different manner or delete questions that are not pertinent to the conversation).

a. Tell me about your childhood, growing up years, family and what school was like for you

b. Tell me about your life right now: what is going well for you, not so well

c. Talk about the experience of aging. What is it like? How do you feel? Has it changed the way

you live or work? What advice would you give anyone about aging?

d. Does religion or spirituality play a role in your life? Has it always? Have your views on

religion/spirituality changed over the years? If so, how?

d. Do you have any health issues?

1) if yes, what do you know/understand about the issues? How do they affect your

daily living

e. Talk about your experience with the health care system. What do you like about your

experiences with health care? What could the health care system do to better meet your

needs? What would you say to a physician about the best way to take care of you? A nurse? A hospital administrator? Anyone else?

5. Reflection questions:

a. What did you learn from the interview about aging adults that was new and/or surprised

you?

b. What did you learn that will be helpful to you in your own experience of aging?

c. What did you learn from the interview about aging adults that will be helpful to you in your

practice? How might the information you used inform the development of nursing

interventions when interacting with older patients?

d. If given the opportunity to repeat this interview experience, would you do anything

differently? If so, why, and what would you do?

e. include any additional reflections about this interview, your thoughts about aging or anything

else that informed/informs your thinking about older adults.

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