Understanding Older People and Their Perspectives

Our study aimed at understanding how student nurses were learning to work with older people revealed that ageism is prevalent in society, the nursing profession and is being perpetuated in nursing programs. We shared our findings to older people, nursing practice leaders, and student nurses and asked who needed to hear about our findings. They suggested nursing programs, the general public and school age children all needed to learn more about ageism and education that dispels negative stereotypes about aging. Part of this could occur through exposure to healthy community dwelling older people, and older people telling their stories, their lives and what they want people to know about growing older and ageism.