Chapter seven deals with intimacy
and sexuality in older people. According
to our text, “intimacy is the need to be close to, to be part of, and to feel
familiar with another person” (p.172).
The need for intimacy does not go away as we grow older. Although death, illness or divorce of a
sexual partner may decrease a person’s sex drive. What this student found interesting was that “many
long-term care settings do not allow couples to share a room” (p. 196). What was even more interesting was a study
that found that residents of a nursing home “were more likely than staff to
agree that sex is not needed for women after menopause or for men after age 65
and that sexually active elderly people are “dirty”” (p.196). One has to wonder if that attitude is due to
society’s notion of not wanting to acknowledge that senior citizens have
sex. Youth and sex is prevalent in
advertising, television and movies but it is not common to show the elderly in
sexual situations. The need for intimacy
may not end when a partner dies. Senior citizens
may find new partners in their nursing homes but intimacy may be hard to find
in such a communal setting. Our text
states that nursing homes can address the issue of sexuality among their residents
in several ways:
improving privacy,
educating staff about human sexuality in later life, helping to arrange for
conjugal visits or home visits, encouraging other forms of sexual expression,
such as hugging and kissing; evaluating complaints about sexual functioning,
advising the elderly to discontinue medicines that may affect sexual function
and providing information and counseling about sexuality to interested patients. (p.196)
Intimacy and sex can lessen as we grow older but it does not necessarily stop. It is important for nursing homes and their staff to be able to deal with this issue in a dignified manner.
The elderly population are in need of help and seems as though asking for it gives society some power to decide what this population is supposed to do rather than what is best for this population. The rooms not being able to share between couples is too far. At least a choice should be given to share or not to share rooms.
ReplyDeleteThis learner believes that society does not want to accept that the elderly population have sex and can move on to another partner after deceased spouse or divorce. No one wants to be lonely and this is true for older adults as well. It is human nature to want to bond and be close to another human being. Yet society, they take it from you probably when you most need it.
Today’s youth needs less sex advertisement and more abstinence instead of the elderly population. Our children are getting pregnant and having children.
Society has taken it upon themselves to treat the elderly like they treat the underage group. They think you have to be a certain age to do things and a certain age to stop. The need for intimacy occurs all throughout life, not just when you reach a certain age. Why should the elderly be limited just because they have reached a certain stage in their lives. I was always taught to listen to my elders and to respect them, and that was being done across the board, but now we treat them like they are children and they need to follow the rules because we know what is best for them. I believe they have been around long enough to know what they need and who they want it from. While doing my volunteer hours at a local nursing home, I noticed that they do not put male and female patients in the same room unless they are a married couple. I inquired about this policy and was told they had to do it this way to keep from being sued for possible sexual harassment charges by patients ant/or their families.
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