Sexuality and the Chronically Ill Older Adult, Article Review Example

Verna C. Pangman and Marilyn Seguire are the authors of the article named ‘Sexuality and the Chronically Ill Older Adult: A Social Justice Issue’. It was published in Sexuality and Disability journal in 2000.

The article is focused on the sexuality as a concept that influences older adults or chronically ill people also on the nursing strategies which allow nurses to act in a right way in order to help older adults with their sexual concerns. Much attention is given to the sexuality as an integral part of people’s lives concerning that it can either help or harm the emotional, psychological and physical state of older adults and chronically ill people.

Health assessment procedure is looked at in terms of the aspect of visibility and invisibility of sexuality in today’s world. Depending on the visibility of sexuality, the health can be assessed easily or not. The authors take the view that sexuality is not so visible nowadays so that they propose some tools and strategies to imply it. Rationales for this article to exist are quite specifically shown in the article, meaning that this topic is important because there are more cases of chronic illnesses as it used to be and it is expected that nurses will meet more elderly people with sexual concerns.

Concerning health assessment strategies, in the article there are widely discussed four main strategies: nursing education, practice, research and policy development. They are provided to help nurses recognize the core points of the identity of older adults, especially concerning sexuality. All the strategies are given in concise form including life examples.

As for the population used in the article, the main groups of people who have been discussed were older adults (including chronically ill people). So, it was important for authors to imply the impact and necessity of sexuality for older adults.

In the article, the nursing strategies were described quite well, using the comprehensible examples. Also, an appropriate population was chosen. However, authors tried to illustrate the article with different points of view on visibility of sexuality, and they did not state their position on this aspect.

This article is interesting due to the fact that it reveals some unknown issues, for instance of the importance of sexuality and of sexuality research for older adults and chronically ill people.

A conclusion based on the outcome of the article can be made that the health assessment strategy implied in the article was quite beneficial. It was described in a good way so that this strategy can be adopted in anyone’s practice.

The health assessment strategy was explained clearly enough to understand its mechanism. Additionally, it was provided with examples and very discrete blueprint for action. Therefore, those who decide to understand it, can make it easily.

This area of health assessment is of vital importance in today’s medicine. The authors refer to many contemporary research and articles on this topic, which means that it is interesting for people and vividly discussed in the professional circles. Thus, as the topic is not explored in the best way yet, more information can be found in some new research/articles.

This article mostly applies to nurses who are instrumentals in making sexuality more visible and helping chronically ill people in this aspect. Moreover, older adults can also benefit from the article because nurses who use the strategies given in it have to be more competent and helpful in terms of sexuality concept.

In short, the article aims at presenting the sexuality as a thing which can make life meaningful. Concerning sexuality being so important, it is even more necessary to take into account sexual concerns and values. So the nurses are the tools to help chronically ill older adult to reveal their sexuality or at least to make it more visible. For this reason, several special nursing strategies have to be implied and used.

References

Pangman, C.V., & Seguire, M. (2000). Sexuality and the Chronically Ill Older Adult: A Social Justice Issue. Sexuality and Disability, 18(1).