In ten pages this paper examines the senior citizens of America and the various issues that affect their welfare and well being with psychological, social, and biological perspectives offered. Ten sources are cited in the bibliography.
Name of Research Paper File: AM2_PPeldEvl.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Thorough gerontological evaluation in the nursing home setting requires a consideration of psychological as well as biological and social issues confronting the elderly client. Given
the rapidly changing demographics of our country these considerations are, in fact, becoming a more and more common component of American life in general. Our nations elderly are among
our most treasured societal constituents. They have served us well. Not only are they are parents and grandparents, they have fueled our government, our industries, and even our
war time pursuits. It is now time that we serve them. To do so we must be cognizant of the many factors which affect their health and welfare.
The change in demographics which has resulted from the Baby Boom (the increase in the proportion of individuals over sixty-five as opposed to
the portion under sixty-five) has toppled our countrys demographics from one with a majority of contributors to a majority of those who currently depend on the coverage of programs such
as the Social Security Program and Medicare/Medicaid. Obviously most of these individuals can be categorized as elderly. The situation can be expected to become even more top-heavy in
the near future, however. This presents potentially severe consequences for the economics of elder care. The Baby Boom generation, those 77.9 million Americans
born between 1946 and 1964, currently comprised 29.3 percent of the national population (U.S. Newswire, 1998). Where at one time there was a ratio of 5.5 workers to each
Medicare/Medicaid beneficiary, there is now only 3.9 workers to beneficiary and this ration is expected to drop to 2.2 to 1 by the year 2030 (Johnson, 1999). Samuelson (1999)