buy custom Special Clinical Issues Associated with Providing Older Adults with Mental Health Treatment essay

buy custom Special Clinical Issues Associated with Providing Older Adults with Mental Health Treatment essay Question 1 A vast number of factors contribute to the mental health status of an individual. Some of them include biological, demographic, social, and psychological factors. Older adults in society are people who are particularly affected by these conditions. In order to deal with older adults and help them in their care effectively, mental health clinicians may need to modify their testing environment to ensure optimal performance. Thus, the assessment should entail the mental status of the individual, cognitive ability, medical status and social support that is available to the older person. Apart from physical changes and diseases that occur in older adults such as hearing impairment, visual changes, arthritis, cataracts and osteoporosis, mental health concerns are also prevalent in such people. Dementia, depression, delirium and psychosis are among the mental health challenges facing individuals in this category (Erikson, 1980). Different kinds of dementia occur in older adults with Alzheimers disease being the most common. In order to identify this mental disorder in older adults, mental health clinicians usually notice its early symptoms such as language difficulties, failure to identify objects, memory loss, and difficulty in performing various motor functions and delusions correctly. Moreover, delirium is a mental concern faced by older individuals. Typical symptoms of this include a decline in the ability to sustain attention, impairments in judgment, disturbed consciousness, and an increase or decrease in motor activity. Additionally, depression is a common mental health issue in elderly patients and is majorly associated with distress, which may lead to social and physical functioning impairment in the long run. Due to depression, many adults develop suicidal thoughts, feelings of guilt and face disturbances in their appetites, sleep, memory, and self-esteem. By assessing these characteristics in an o lder adult, mental health clinicians can povide the best care to these individuals since they know how to deal with the symptoms effectively (Erikson, 1980). For example, a test of attention and reasoning ability may be used in the assessment of dementia. Question 2 In order to create an effective mental health treatment plan for an older adult, it is important to perform a psychosocial assessment of the patient. It will aid in understanding the latter, enabling the provision of the best treatment plan. In order to do so, I will focus on establishing a rapport with the patient and seek to gain an understanding of an illness that the one has. Identifying any recent life changes in the individual can aid in assessing and discovering the persons strengths such as any positive coping strategies that he or she may have. Urging the person to retell his or her life story such as diet, drug use or social support will be vital in the assessment. The psychiatric history, medical record, social situation and the evaluation of suicide risks will aid in creating an effective plan from the information that will be presented (Erikson, 1980). Question 3 The older adult population perceives mental health problems and social issues differently. Experimental subjects that older adults talk about may vary according to various factors such as age, race, gender, socioeconomic status, and even cultural background. For example, an older person who is racially profiled may feel discriminated having mental health illnesses such as depression. For others, the onset of certain ages comes with the lapse of memory, while others with economic hardships face certain levels of stress, which lead to depression (Krauss-Whitbourne Whibourne, 2014). Since people have different attitudes and perceptions regarding various issues, mental health problems are viewed differently by the community. In society, the attitudes of people towards meental illnesses usually set the stage for how they interact and support persons with mental disorders. Additionally, individuals beliefs regarding mental health issues xpress emotional and psychological distress they face. Unfortunately, in society, other normal people view persons with mental illnesses in a negative way. Often affected by culture, mental problems are seen as a taboo in some nations. Thus, people associated with it are given a wide berth. These attitudes are formed across different age groups, where most young people view a mental illness as a weakness and consider persons with such a problem as strange. Consequently, the older generation has a different attitude towards mental issues, while some still view them as a form of disability. Moreover, others change their attitude towar ds mental illness once they learn about it (Krauss-Whitbourne Whibourne, 2014). The majority view individuals with mental problems as being violent and see them as a threat to society. Unfortunately, peoples lack of understanding of mental illness has caused the stigmatization and discrimination of individuals living with this disease. Older adults have to live with this stigma as they are viewed by the younger generation as being too dependent and demand constant care from them. As a result, some prefer not to tell their families about the issues they are facing in regards to their mentality due to the fear of rejection. The stereotype has caused many older people to isolate themselves from society and look for forms of escape by indulging in drug and alcohol abuse. Some lose self-dignity since they perceive themselves as a burden to others, especially their families (Krauss-Whitbourne Whibourne, 2014). It demands people of different ages to be more educated and well informed about mental illnesses to change their perception of the latter. Through the awareness of the disease, people can recognize, manage and even prevent worsening of its symptoms in their loved ones. Buy custom Special Clinical Issues Associated with Providing Older Adults with Mental Health Treatment essay