Introduction
Virtually all nurse in the course of their careers care for the geriatric population. Wendt reported 63% of newly licensed nurses stated that older adults comprise a majority of their patient loads. Yet a large proportion of nurses continue to report feeling inadequately prepared to care for the ever-increasing number of older clients. The institute of medicine (IOM) affirmed that although efforts to educate the workforce in geriatrics have somewhat improved, they still fall short and remain inadequate in consistency and scope. Not only do nurses report inadequate preparation in regard to care of older adults, they also report a strong opposition to working with older adults. According to happell, ed, and brooker, elder care is viewed by many practicing and student nurses as custodial, boring, unrewarding, and unchallenging. Many nurses prefer careers in fields other than geriatrics. When practicing and student nurses are questioned concerning their nursing career choices, gerontologic ranks last place following psychiatric nursing. This is possibly related to their negative, stereotyped attitudes toward the elderly. These stereotyped attitudes often serve as a barrier to forming effective, therapeutic relations with this age group. Evens and gelder stated that many negative attitudes and misconceptions exist toward the elderly in today’s society.
Nursing faculty designed an interactive project to expose nursing students to care of older adults through the experience of becoming older and seeing what it is like to have the same age-related changes. The goal was for these nursing students to expose nurses and other health care workers to these same aging experiences. The purpose of the project was to increase nursing students’ and health care participants’ knowledge and empathy in regard to normal changes associated with aging and several disease processes, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.