Top Qualities of a Geriatric Nurse
Geriatric nurses spend significant time in offering care to aging adults. The essential work of a geriatric nurse or elderly nurse (perawat lansia, which is the term in Indonesian] is to work together with patients, the community, and families to offer the best quality care to the elderly. This field requires professionalism and individual qualities because the patients frequently have unique needs depending on their age.
The top characteristics every elderly nurse must possess include:
Patience
People of different types need their medical attendant to have a great deal of patience; however, geriatric patients can be particularly challenging especially those who get easily irritated. An attendant who works in gerontology ought to be able to listen to patients who may talk gradually and display confusion. Patience will be necessary when dealing with relatives who might experience difficulties with the possibility of their loved ones requiring full-time care.
Compassion
The sad reality is that most geriatric patients are close to the finish of their lives when they need help from a medical attendant. They may not yet be hospice-bound, but medical issues will start heaping up for individuals during the later stages of their lives. It is fundamental for a gerontology medical attendant to be both compassionate and tolerant. The elderly in your care might be incontinent or unfit to bathe themselves, yet this does not imply that their feeling of personal pride, shame, and want for self-sufficiency has vanished. Adopting a good strategy is the ideal approach to enable them, regardless of whether they are surly toward you consistently.
Solid Attention to Detail
One of the primary functions of gerontology nursing is preventative care. Your aged patients will be at a lot higher risk than more youthful individuals of developing ailments, for example, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and stroke. Hence, it is essential to pay attention to every patient’s complaints so you can help them to keep away from or manage any of these potential health issues. You should be able to thoroughly and quickly evaluate somebody’s therapeutic history and make a precaution program that suits their needs.
Creative
People who have dementia can be challenging, but they as well present medical attendants with the chance to be creative. Truth be told, it will be essential to improve your creativity for some geriatric patients as their treatment plan is probably going to be dependent on your creativity. For instance, some dementia patients react well to art therapy, so you may need to draw or paint at some point with them.