Ageism In Health And Social Care Essay

This assignment will reflect on a scenario concentrating on ageism and will focus on valuing diversity and anti-discriminative practice. It will discuss how they are important to the delivery of care. I shall also discuss how I have developed and improved my interpersonal skills with both patients and colleagues and overcome barriers created through prejudice and labelling. Also considered is how the Johari window (Luft & Ingham 1955) allows understanding of the self and how that has an important effect on practice.

Using reflective practice I have gained insight into my strengths and weaknesses. Reflection is being able to link theory to practice effectively (Jarmen 1993). I have used my reflective diary to support this assignment.

Diversity is the quality of being different or varied (Smart 2000). Therefore each patient's needs differ and care must be delivered accordingly to suit the individual's needs. Diversity is an important part of daily life and is an issue in every workplace and I
As a society we are not very tolerant of the elderly and Yates (1997) poses the question if from the moment we are born the ageing process begins then why should elderly people become devalued because of their age? Biggs (2000) sees ageism as the daftest form of prejudice since we all grow old. We all know ageism exists but what is it? Ageism can be seen as a process of systematic stereotyping of and discrimination against people because they are old, just as racism and sexism accomplish this for skin colour and gender (Butler 1969.) Ageism allows the younger generations to see older people as differently from themselves and is seen as any prejudice or discrimination against or in favour of an age group (Palmore, 1990). Ageism is mainly deemed to be against the older person, but can also affect the younger generation. Ageism is about someone not being recognised for their ability because of their age albeit too young or too old (Palmore