Empowering Older Women

Empowering Older Women
Author’s Name
Institution
Introduction
Older women often face various challenges that affect their health (McCandless & Conner, 1999). This often leads to poor health in this group, culminating in decreased quality of life and premature deaths. In line with this, it is essential to change the issues that hinder proper health seeking habits and patterns in older women. The changes should empower women to take charge of their own health. This paper addresses three issues that need change so as to empower older women with regards to their health. The issues addressed include the role of alternative therapies, care-giving roles and instructions on exercise.
Role of Alternative Therapies
There has been a noticeable increase in the use and awareness of alternative therapies over the past decade (Gaylord, 1999). In particular, women have been drawn to explore the unconventional health practices, ranging from homeopathy, herbal medicine, acupuncture, energy healing, mind-body therapies and manual therapies. The rise in alternative therapies is cultural shift which seeks to embrace a holistic model that can re-empower older women. Historically, women have applied, developed and taught practices that are now considered alternative modalities of healing. By becoming familiar with these alternative therapies, older women can enhance prevention and self-care and increase their control over health. In addition, this change will lead to the enjoyment of a health-care pathway which leads to wholeness of spirit, body and mind.
The mechanisms and philosophy of action of most alternative therapies reflect a feminine perspective on healing, rather than a masculine perspective (Gaylord, 1999). The motherhood biological capacity seems well aligned with the appreciation for gradual development over time and gentle nurturance, rather that the arbitrary, harsh, and forced treatments, such as powerful medicines and surgery. These forced treatments are often used in conventional medicine.
The use of alternative therapies increases the sense of control, and this leads to enhancement of health. Self-determination represents a hallmark of empowerment (Vinton, 1999). Most of the alternative therapies require and attitude of independence, self-determination and self-motivation. As an example, body-work and mind-body therapies require a discipline of both body and mind over a protracted period of time. This discipline works to learn new skills and change the habitual patterns of behavior. Most alternative therapies encourage self-education through books, listening to recordings or searching the internet (Gaylord, 1999).
The use of alternative therapies demands courage to go against the conventional medicine establishment. As an example, a primary-care provider may instill beliefs that one’s desired health pathway is worthless. Patients who use complementary and alternative methods of health care are often the managers of their health. True healing mechanisms derived from these alternative therapies strengthen the body, stimulate the body-mind’s healing capacity and make the body systems more resistant to stress (Gaylord, 1999).
It is imperative to note that the cost of these alternative therapies is often lower than conventional care (Gaylord, 1999). In-depth knowledge of these alternative-care strategies empowers the user to effectively care for themselves in addition to family members. Such skills reinstate the role of the older woman as a family healer (Vinton, 1999). Needless to say, widespread use of the alternative therapies also empowers the therapists, many of whom will be older women.
Addressing Care-giving roles
Women spend a great deal of their lives providing care to their children and families. This in turn hinders their economic well-being. Women are likely to spend more than 17 years caring for their children and more than 17 years caring for a parent (Nancy, Landry-Meyer & Spence, 2007). An increasing number of women spend most of their adult lives in myriads of care giving roles (Hooyman & Gonyea, 1999). This provision of care affects the ability of a woman to carry out financial plans or enact retirement. Eventually, a combination of these and other factors will lead to poverty of older women. Subsequently, these older women will lack the ability to afford proper health care.
In order to empower older women, it is essential that the impact of care-giving roles on women’s financial insecurity is acknowledged and addressed (Nancy, Landry-Meyer & Spence, 2007). Women’s multiple care-giving roles greatly influence their retirement security. Women should be made aware of the risk of financial insecurity as correlated with care giving roles in their life span. In line with this, it is imperative for counseling as a pr...