College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Catalog 2016

194 role of the GCM in working with the family unit. Specific topics will include: conflicts between the client’s needs, wants and autonomy; how to resolve ethical dilemmas, ethnicity, aging and health; care management credentialing; assessing clients values and sources of meaning, and understanding aging within the family system. GERO 5400: Sociology of Aging for Future Leaders This course will provide a sociological perspective on the aging process and tools to effect change. Students will examine the impact of social policies, and the social and cultural conditions that shape the life course of older adults as individuals and as groups. As future leaders in the field, this class will seek to provide the student with an ability to critically analyze the policies and institutions that provide care and services to older adults, i.e. long term care facilities, hospitals, senior centers, etc., and the tools, i.e. needs assessment; evidence-based policy development; use of media, advocacy, and coalition-building strategies, and an introduction to program evaluation, in order to offer meaningful change to improve the quality of older lives. 3 credits GERO 5500: Psychology of Aging This course will focus on the human development theories that provide the underpinning for a humanistic approach to aging. The humanistic approach is closely associated with the term 'conscious aging', which implies that in addition to the nature of aging as a biological and sociological phenomenon, there is a developmental path that includes the psychological and the transpersonal or spiritual. Students will engage in exploring this holistic perspective that includes applying the theoretical frameworks associated with Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Ken Wilber, and others, as well as life-span theory to the process of aging. 3 credits GERO 5523: Public Health Nutrition and Older Adults (3 credits) Nutrition is a critical factor in maintaining and promoting the health of adults as they age. This course will provide students with the principles and practices to identify public health nutrition issues and problems pertaining to older adults and how to develop strategies and programs to alleviate and/or reduce the problems and challenges presented with. The course explores the role of public health nutrition in the 21st century from a global aging perspective. This course will provide students with methods and skills to identify nutrition related health problems and to plan community-based prevention programs for diverse populations. GERO 5550: Care Plan Development and Health Care Advocacy (3 credits) This course will cover the geriatric assessment, the care planning process, and the development of a comprehensive holistic quality of life care plan. Specific topics include: cognitive and psychosocial assessment, dementia, depression, functional assessment, activities of daily living, developing care plan goals, writing an assessment, implementing appropriate care plan interventions and creating a system for care plan monitoring and ongoing client advocacy. GERO 5600: Biology of Human Aging While aging is a fact present in all human lives, there are common misconceptions as to what aging is, how we age, and why we age. There are also controversial and ethical issues associated with scientific explorations into extending our life spans. We will therefore be examining the impact of the science of aging on human life; the use of medical technology and its impact on mitigating aging. We will learn about the many theories of aging; examine healthy aging, and the diseases that most commonly affect us as we grow older. We will also look at the effects of aging on several body systems, and the effect of environment on aging within the context of how purpose and meaning are formed and challenged as human beings grow older. 3 credits GERO 5700: Aging and Diversity While all human beings age, human beings age differently. Reducing racial and ethnic disparities in health has been identified as a national goal. Using the lens of health care is a primary way in which to understand the impact of culture on aging in the United States. Cultural beliefs and values impact how older adults learn and have access to and/or process information. The quality of service may be greatly influenced by understanding or misunderstanding the ethnic beliefs and values of older adults. This course will teach students how aging and ethnicity affect how we serve older adults. The course will also help students become better acquainted with their own cultural beliefs and values, as they learn about the cultural beliefs and values of a wide variety of ethnicities. 3 credits GERO 6110: Systems Application in the Family Life Cycle of Aging (3 credits) This course provides a focus on the major concepts of systems thinking as applied to the family life cycle of aging and foundational concepts of systemic theories associated with the work of Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana, and Heinz von Forester. An exploration of interactional theories informed by cybernetics, language, and natural systems metaphors in the framework of the aging process is included. This course will provide not only an opportunity to learn about systemic theories, but also a venue to reflect on applications of such theoretical concepts while examining the process of aging and family interactions involving older adults and their families. GERO 6120: Relationships in Aging (3 credits) Multi-dimensional in nature, aging invites diverse health care professionals to work together to examine its various aspects. This course offers students an opportunity to reflect on diverse relationships among older adults themselves, senior health care consumers and their health care providers, and various health care professionals who are taking care of the