Multiple losses in the aged: implications for nursing care.

Losses in the aged are multiple. The literature is replete with physical, social, psychological, and economic losses experienced by the aged. Ujhely (1968) discusses the variety of losses an aged person experiences and the necessity for making an adjustment to that particular loss. As an instructor, I became interested in the losses nurses observed as they worked with the aged in a variety of settings. I studied 56 assignments written about aged clients by nurses in my gerontology class; the nurses were diploma graduate RNs in a night class in a local junior college.