Geriatric Nursing: Caring for Older Adults (Podcast)

When Jennifer Katlen, MEd, MSN, APRN, ACNS-BC, CCRN, GERO-BC, teaches an aging sensitivity course, she asks caregivers to list the first words that come to mind when they think of older patients. They often describe geriatric patients as weak, frail, grumpy and slow. She then reminds course attendees that what you see in the hospital isn’t the norm.

“We always point out that if you put the most active person in a hospital gown and some yellow socks in a bed, you’re going to go right to that they’re slow, they’re frail, they’re grumpy – not that they’re running the community center near their house or golfing three times a week,” says Katlen. “So, it’s important to kind of reset our perceptions on older adults.”

In this episode of Cleveland Clinic’s Nurse Essentials podcast, Katlen and Julie Simon, MSN, RN, ACNS-BC, GCNS-BC, CMSRN, clinical nurse specialists within the healthcare system, share misconceptions about older patients and insight on caring for the geriatric population. They delve into:

• The importance of assessing for physiological, psychological and social changes in older patients
• How to build trust and relationships with geriatric patients
• Looking for signs of elder abuse and neglect
• The Age-Friendly Health Systems’ 4Ms of care: What Matters, Medication, Mentation and Mobility
• Cleveland Clinic’s geriatric resource nurse program

Click the podcast player above to listen to the episode now, or read on for a short, edited excerpt. Check out more Nurse Essentials episodes at my.clevelandclinic.org/podcasts/nurse-essentials or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast excerpt

Podcast host Carol Pehotsky, DNP, RN, NEA-BC: Tell us a little bit about the importance of building trust in caring for older patients.

Katlen: So, we want to make sure that we're building a trusting environment with our patients. And sometimes that occurs in the hospital and sometimes outside of the hospital.

I encourage you, if you're interested in working with older adults, to seek out opportunities maybe in your community to work with our older adults. Whether that's a community health fair or I work at our mobile food pantry at my hospital. And that provides a lot of good connection points.

Julie has some great ideas for building a trusting environment in the hospital setting.

Simon: Right. Beyond that experience, which I think is helpful, make sure that the scenario is set up for good communication in the first place. So, does the patient have their glasses on? Do they have their hearing aids on? Is the IV pump going off? You know, sitting next to you and the neighbor has their TV blaring. So, can we look at the environment, address it a little bit so they can have conversations with us in the first place?

And then, beyond that, it prevents so many different things like delirium as we mentioned before. But then, [make sure] you have that good setup – come down to eye level, sit down with your patient and then have your conversation. Because it just communicates respect – I have the time for you, to see what your concern is.