Royal Adelaide Hospital School of Nursing graduation address

Abstract

The most common set of stereotypes was that older people were almost universally debilitated and depressed, daggy and despicable, daft and dejected, demented and dotty. It was commonly assumed that before long our society would be swamped by a geriatric tidal wave. We know that that is demonstrably not so. It is a devious distortion. Nursing care of the elderly had traditionally been given low status in respect to other fields of nursing but the challenges in working with our older population are enormous. The nurse working with elderly people needs to develop and test new strategies of prevention and care which are based on adequate educational preparation of the nurse and a grounding in research. It is important for the nurse to recognise the difference between changes associated with the normal ageing process and those which indicate that disease is present.