As a nursing student, you may have preconceived ideas about caring for older adults. Such ideas are influenced by your observations of family members, friends, neighbors, the media, and your own experience with the elderly. Perhaps you have a close relationship with your grandparents or you have noticed the aging of your own parents. For some of you, the aging process may have become noticeable when you look at yourself in the mirror. But for all of us, this universal phenomenon we call aging has some type of meaning, whether or not we have taken the time to consciously think about it.