Emotional Effects of Hospitalisation on the Older Person

Essay by lennie April 2006

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Social Contexts of Peoples Lives

Introduction

This assignment is related to a group presentation, the theme of which is; Societal Influences on the Health and Well-being of the Older Person. This piece of work will analyse the emotions faced by the elderly when they enter the care setting and how they cope with them. Key authors for consideration in this piece are; Canon (1927), Stroh (1971), Russell (1999) and Gatchel, Baum and Krantz (1989).

The individuals referred to throughout this assignment were both clients encountered on the student's first clinical placement set on a care of the elderly ward in a local community hospital. The names and details of all individuals referred to in this assignment have been changed in order to maintain confidentiality in accordance with the standards laid down in section 5 of the Code of Professional Conduct (Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), 2002). Where reference is made to 'the student' it refers to an action or interaction carried out by or involving myself.

Main Discussion

In order to begin discussing emotions it would be pertinent to first give a working definition to the term. Emotions are common phenomena which are experienced by everyone in some form or another, but due to their highly subjective nature we find it extremely difficult to reach a consensus as to what they are and how they occur.

Emotion - various mental states and processes, made up of many bodily and mental changes, which can be either enjoyable or distressing (Zimbardo, McDermott, Jansz and Metaal, 1995).

This definition was further supported by a model showing the sequence of emotion which was proposed by Cannon (1927) (Appendix 1), the rationale behind choosing this model was that it demonstrates the emotional experience and bodily reaction occurring alongside one another to form the whole...