Nursing Degree Programs Are Implementing Geriatric Care Courses Into Curriculum

The Pew Research Center in December described them as "perched on the front stoop of old age." The oldest of the baby boom generation this year begin turning 65, the Pew Research Center article noted, a milestone that only 13 percent of the American population has presently reached. Seymour Butts is one of the "patients," virtually speaking, that has been helping students in nursing degree programs learn to care for an increasingly aged population.

Butts, afflicted stress-related buttocks sores at a private Indiana university's virtual learning lab, is a part of what some consider innovative programming in geriatrics. It wasn't until fairly recently, however, that students working toward their nursing degrees had much training in this subject area.

Studies in 1997 and 2003 have suggested that geriatric education was a part of nursing degree programs that were lacking in one way or another. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the studies found that educational programming was inadequate, instructor experience was lacking and few nursing degree programs included individual courses in geriatric nursing. The association stepped in and provided nursing schools with grants for enhancing geriatric nursing education as part of their nursing degree programs.

The grants, provided with help from $3.99 million from the John A. Hartford Foundation, were provided as part of an Enhancing Geriatric Nursing Education in Undergraduate and Advanced Practice Nursing Programs. With this money, 20 nursing degree programs at the undergraduate level and 10 at the graduate level made strides towards developing faculty knowledge in the area, adding gerontology courses and coursework, establishing clinical programs and more, the association website shows.

The private university in Indiana, for example, redesigned its nursing degree program, making an elective course on The Aging Process a required course, began more intense promotions for a Human Aging minor, established partnerships with senior centers and assisted living facilities, added a gerontology certificate program and more. The virtual learning lab with Butts is a part of The Aging Process course, as is a service learning project requirement whereby students provide group presentations at churches, assisted living facilities and senior day care centers in the area.

At a public university in Florida, gerontology was integrated into all courses, including pharmacology, where students can learn about medications considered inadvisable for older adults. A course in gerontology was also made available to new students and professional nurses, information on the American Association of Colleges of Nursing website shows. The course, Nursing Care of Older Adults, began as an elective and as of the 2005-2006 academic year was scheduled to become a requirement. As part of it, the instructor included a Facts on Aging quiz as well as Into Aging and Walk in My Shoes, interactive games that simulated aging.

There are nearly 80 million men and women who are considered baby boomers, which equates to about 26 percent of the American population, according to the Pew Research Center article. If that article is any indication, baby boomers themselves, however, might not yet care about how nursing degree programs are preparing students to tend to them. That's because many baby boomers not only consider old age to be 72 and older - they also feel nine years younger than they actually are, the article noted.