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Geriatric means relating to older people, but this position can be a fun one. You hear all kinds of stories from older people, and your knowledge of the past is amplified. Plus, older people can be easy to take care of; just be their friend.


To become a geriatric nursing assistant, you must give care to elderly patients by helping them get dressed, bathed, and fed. You will need to be strong, so you can move and reposition patients to keep them comfortable. You will also need knowledge on how to take temperatures, pulse rates, and blood pressure. The best skills you can have are patience, caring, friendliness, and being helpful.


A high school diploma or GED is required for this position, and depending on where you work - hospital, nursing home, or long-term care facility - it will determine the training you need for this position. The job growth for geriatric nursing assistants is growing by almost 8% from previous years, and you can expect to make about $30,000 a year.

What Does a Geriatric Nursing Assistant Do

There are certain skills that many geriatric nursing assistants have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed communication skills, compassion and patience.

Learn more about what a Geriatric Nursing Assistant does

How To Become a Geriatric Nursing Assistant

If you're interested in becoming a geriatric nursing assistant, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 22.9% of geriatric nursing assistants have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 4.8% of geriatric nursing assistants have master's degrees. Even though some geriatric nursing assistants have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Learn More About How To Become a Geriatric Nursing Assistant

Career Path For a Geriatric Nursing Assistant

As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a geriatric nursing assistant can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as certified nursing assistant, progress to a title such as registered nurse and then eventually end up with the title nursing director.

Geriatric Nursing Assistant

Average Salary for a Geriatric Nursing Assistant

Geriatric Nursing Assistants in America make an average salary of $34,595 per year or $17 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $46,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $25,000 per year.
Average Geriatric Nursing Assistant Salary
$34,595 Yearly
$16.63 hourly

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Roles and Types of Geriatric Nursing Assistant

The role of a geriatric nursing assistant includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general geriatric nursing assistant responsibilities:

  • Provides patient care in a manner conducive to safety
  • 1. Endorses and communicates the philosophy
  • Provide personal care functions to residents perform basic nursing care procedures for residents as required create a clean, comfortable

There are several types of geriatric nursing assistant, including:

Certified Nurses' Aide

Role:

The duties of certified nurses' aides mainly focus on providing healthcare and well-being assistance to the patients in private clinical establishments, hospitals, hospices, or whatever establishment that provides care for a long period.


It is also a part of your responsibility to aid patients in putting on clothes, ensuring they take their bath, catheter utilization, crucial regular exercise and strolls, and arranging and feeding meals. What is more? You must observe patients' crucial signs and general state. You must cooperate with nurses and other health care personnel by announcing alterations and recovery as well as helping nurses in the direct treatment of trauma patients.


Nurses' Aides don't usually require a university education, but the most frequently used degree for a certified Nurses' aide is a high school diploma, although an associate degree can be used as an alternative. Furthermore, you must demonstrate excellent communication, problem-solving, and writing skills. You should also be detail-oriented and show empathy for patients. You will earn an average yearly salary ranging from $22,000 to $37,000.

  • Average Salary: $32,566
  • Degree: High School Diploma

Nurses' Aide

Role:

If you have been admitted to a hospital before, the nurse aide is the individual in charge of performing basic chores such as preparing meals, dressing, and bathing. Their primary role is centered around providing welfare and health care assistance, and they're supervised by a registered nurse.


Daily, a nurses' aide will also record vital signs, administer patient medication, and undertake light housekeeping duties. They are in charge of transporting patients to operating rooms, conducting equipment set up, and working with nurses in reporting patient progress.


Employers require nurses' aides to have a minimum high school diploma or G.E.D equivalent. On top of that, they will also need certification as a nurse aide I or nurse aide II, depending on the job scope. This role earns, on average, $13 per hour.

  • Average Salary: $30,496
  • Degree: High School Diploma

Medical Scribe

Role:

A Medical Scribe acts as support for the doctor, a kind of a personal assistant, filling out paperwork, taking notes during patient interviews, monitoring some test results, and generally getting the non-clinical tasks and paperwork out of the way of the physician they work with. The role of such a Scribe is important because it allows the doctor to focus on treating and working with patients.


An ideal candidate for this position should have prior experience and knowledge of medical paperwork and a passion for medicine. A Scribe need not have any sort of college degree or be attending a university of any sorts to begin their career, but many employers prefer hiring people who do so.


A Scribe generally works twice a week, alongside their doctor, who works either eight, ten or 12-hour shifts.

  • Average Salary: $30,045
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

States With The Most Geriatric Nursing Assistant Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active geriatric nursing assistant jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where geriatric nursing assistants earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Geriatric Nursing Assistant Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1Florida4,550$29,816
2Texas4,037$32,283
3California4,025$42,565
4Pennsylvania3,426$36,999
5New York3,419$38,780
6North Carolina3,101$33,884
7Ohio2,938$40,935
8Massachusetts2,725$42,561
9Minnesota2,516$37,118
10Michigan2,465$38,813
11Georgia2,422$32,125
12Indiana2,294$39,256
13Illinois2,277$29,485
14Washington1,956$40,908
15New Jersey1,867$40,846
16Wisconsin1,722$34,546
17Maryland1,671$37,092
18Virginia1,611$36,078
19Missouri1,433$33,297
20Tennessee1,432$31,296
21Colorado1,368$31,500
22Arizona1,278$35,630
23Kentucky1,134$35,313
24South Carolina1,099$30,331
25Iowa1,070$32,658
26Oregon1,063$40,384
27Connecticut987$43,234
28Kansas888$30,784
29Maine795$40,142
30Oklahoma784$33,289
31New Hampshire705$34,033
32Nebraska645$31,706
33Louisiana626$29,816
34Alabama613$32,286
35New Mexico558$28,406
36West Virginia539$33,430
37Arkansas532$28,581
38Utah452$28,339
39Mississippi417$28,898
40Idaho401$33,043
41Montana392$31,949
42Rhode Island322$37,760
43Nevada281$38,528
44North Dakota261$31,546
45Delaware249$38,700
46South Dakota239$34,913
47Vermont193$33,489
48Alaska162$38,321
49Hawaii128$47,433
50Wyoming70$34,093

Geriatric Nursing Assistant Education

Geriatric Nursing Assistant Majors

49.7 %

Geriatric Nursing Assistant Degrees

Bachelors

22.9 %

High School Diploma

22.8 %

Associate

20.6 %

Top Skills For a Geriatric Nursing Assistant

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 26.2% of geriatric nursing assistants listed patients on their resume, but soft skills such as communication skills and compassion are important as well.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Geriatric Nursing Assistant Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Geriatric Nursing Assistant templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Geriatric Nursing Assistant resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

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Geriatric Nursing Assistant diversity

Geriatric Nursing Assistant Gender Distribution

Female
Female
87%
Male
Male
13%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among geriatric nursing assistants, 86.6% of them are women, while 13.4% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among geriatric nursing assistants is White, which makes up 52.1% of all geriatric nursing assistants.

  • The most common foreign language among geriatric nursing assistants is Spanish at 38.5%.

Online Courses For Geriatric Nursing Assistant That You May Like

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1. Essentials of Palliative Care

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This course starts you on your journey of integrating primary palliative care into your daily lives. You will learn what palliative care is, how to communicate with patients, show empathy, and practice difficult conversations. You will learn how to screen for distress and provide psychosocial support. You will learn about goals of care and advance care planning and how to improve your success with having these conversations with patients. Finally, you will explore important cultural...

2. Transitions in Care from Survivorship to Hospice

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This course should be taken after the Symptom Management course and continues building your primary palliative care skills – communication, psychosocial support, goals of care, and symptom management. You will explore transitions in care such as survivorship and hospice. You will learn how to create a survivorship care plan and how to best support a patient. The course also covers spiritual care and will teach you how to screen for spiritual distress. Finally, you will learn the requirements...

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Best States For a Geriatric Nursing Assistant

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a geriatric nursing assistant. The best states for people in this position are Hawaii, Connecticut, California, and Massachusetts. Geriatric nursing assistants make the most in Hawaii with an average salary of $47,433. Whereas in Connecticut and California, they would average $43,234 and $42,565, respectively. While geriatric nursing assistants would only make an average of $42,561 in Massachusetts, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.

1. Connecticut

Total Geriatric Nursing Assistant Jobs: 987
Highest 10% Earn:
$59,000
Location Quotient:
1.21

2. Indiana

Total Geriatric Nursing Assistant Jobs: 2,294
Highest 10% Earn:
$54,000
Location Quotient:
1.42

3. Maine

Total Geriatric Nursing Assistant Jobs: 795
Highest 10% Earn:
$50,000
Location Quotient:
2.44
Full List Of Best States For Geriatric Nursing Assistants

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Top Geriatric Nursing Assistant Employers

Most Common Employers For Geriatric Nursing Assistant

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Erickson Senior Living$38,187$18.368
2Good Samaritan Center$35,294$16.9711
3Lorien Health Services$35,128$16.8933
4Frankford Township Board of Education$35,095$16.879
5asbury.com$34,975$16.818
6Family & Nursing Care$34,350$16.517
7Copper$34,308$16.497
8Maryland Masonic Homes$34,014$16.3513
9Homewood Foundation$33,919$16.3112
10King David Nursing & Rehabilitation Center$33,685$16.199