Elderly Adults : Elderly Adult Assessment

I had the privilege of interviewing a 60 year old gentlemen who I will identify as Mr. E to protect his privacy for this assignment. The goal of my interview was to gain insight on aging from an older adult. I interviewed Mr. E in his home on a weekday evening. He expressed appreciation and was surprised that he was the focus of an interview in which his life story and thoughts would be recorded.

All too often in regards to medical treatment, physicians are taught everything known about the scientific approaches to disease but still fail to realize the important details of how the disease impacts the individual. Many physicians do not show empathy to their patients and instead just focus on the current diagnosis and the probable outcome. This creates a divide between patient and provider and can even lead to negative feelings of the patient that far outweigh the diagnosis itself. A feeling of hopelessness and despair may accompany the empty feeling that comes with failing to explore the patient’s perspective on care. In this essay, Parrish states,

Older adults need the list to be presented at a slower speed in order to improve recall. This is because older adults experience a slowing down in the speed of processing. This is mostly due to the fact older adults also experience a decrease in the amount of dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine. These three are all important in high cognitive functioning.

At today's visit he is accompanied by his wife. He is awake, alert and oriented. He reports that his back pain has improved with the pain regimen he was started on last Friday. He complains of lower back pain that he describes as achy and constant; he rates his pain as a 7/10 in severity. He states that his pain doe not radiate, but it affects his mobility and impedes his ability to get out of bed by himself. His pain regimen is Morphine ER 15 mg p.o every 12 hours and oxycodone/apap 10/325 mg p.o every 4 hours as needed for breakthrough pain. He has taken 6 as needed breakthrough doses daily since Friday. He states that his pain has improved but his goal is to have his pain a little better than 7/10, then he will be able to perform his ADLS

When developing a care plan for an older adult, in addition to the complete nursing assessment, it would, also, be beneficial for the nurse to complete a geriatric assessment by using the Fulmer SPICES tool. This tool will focus the nursing assessment on the most six common conditions that are common in the elderly today, this would include; any sleep problem, difficulties with eating and feeding, assessing for any incontinence, confusion, if there are evidence of falls and to assess for any skin break down. More so, assess these areas in the geriatric population can provided the nurse with an insight on the client of all health condition (Fulmer, 2012). In speaking with Robert in regards to the SPICES assessment, I have found the Fulmer SPICES

Falls are the most frequent and devastating accidents in older adult (WHO, 2004). There are different interpretations related to falls. For instance, according to healthcare professions fall is an event leading to ill health and injuries, whereas older adults define it as a loss of balance (Zecevic et al., 2006). Approximately, 28% to 35% older adults age 65 years and older fall each year (WHO, 2007). Around 85% of these falls occurs in the home among older adults living independently (Tideiksaar, 1987). Falls accounts for 40% of all fatal injuries (Rubenstein, 2006). Fall is a reason for 25% of all hospital admissions, 40% of all nursing home admissions and 40% of those admitted do not return to independent living (Learn not to fall,

An assessment of a person is used to focus not only on the areas an older adult may need support with, but also the areas where the older adult is functioning appropriately (McInnus-Dittrich, 2014). Using the strengths perspective in the assessment process as well has in the interventions helps older adults achieve their goals. (McInnus-Dittrich, 2014). The goal of an assessment is to establish what needs the older adult wants to meet as opposed to the goals the social worker envisions for the client (McInnus-Dittrich, 2014). This clinical assessment of Carl is going to examine the social history, physical, psychological, social, spiritual, financial, environmental, and legal assess as they apply to Carl, and assess the strengths he displayed

The study carried out a qualitative survey of 31 people to explore the causes and processes of the elderly, noting that 10 to 20 % of the elderly hoped to die. According to the authors, the sudden life crises or long-lasting hardships make the elderly seem unable to change or control the situation and, consequently, perceive the death as a positive way to solve the problem. In the framework of Figure 1 presented as a research result, positive aspects and negative aspects of death were somewhat fresh for me. However other parts were a bit common and basic. (The gap between the hope and reality has brought a sense of learned helplessness, depression, and despair, which led to the conclusion that it leads to the final judgment of death on the

Falls among inpatient elderly adults has become a national health crisis concern, leading cause of hospital injuries, and prolonged length of hospital stays (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2012). Every year, there are approximately 700,000 to 1,000,000 hospitalized falls in hospitals, (Cox, Thomas-Hawkins, Pajarillo, DeGennaro, Cadmus, & Martinez, 2014). Cangany, Back, Hamilton-Kelly, Altman, and Lacey (2015) emphasize inpatient falls are the second leading cause of death in hospital settings. The indirect costs related to inpatient fall for a hospital is approximate $13,806 not including malpractice obligations and staff injuries (Simpson, Rosenthal, Cumbler, & Likosky, 2013).

From watching the video, I learned about what happens during the span of time that a geriatric client is being treated with OT. Lindsey Mong, a Penn College student, goes through each of step of OT treatment with a client named Mary. She explained that Mary had a degenerative joint disease. Because of the disease Mary had, she had to get a total hip replacement. The first step that Mary went through was an initial evaluation. In this part of OT, the OT practitioner finds out what their client’s current abilities are. After that, the OT practitioners used clinical reasoning with Mary to figure out what it is that she hoped to achieve by the end of treatment. During this part of OT, OT practitioners also look at what the clients do to bring meaning to their lives.

When it comes to my perception on the older adult, I somewhat contradict myself quite often. Sometimes I view them in a way that I am not proud of, but I view them as needy, pestering and somewhat incompetent. In another perception I see them as sweet, caring, knowledgeable and willing. My two different perceptions come from my work place. I work at Charles Regional Medical Center on a Medical/Surgical/Pediatrics floor, where I see older adults more than any other age range. My first perception of the older adults comes from seeing careless patients who never took care of themselves medically, and who still do not seem to care about their rapid medical decrease. I feel like they have created some of these issues for themselves and would rather

When determining if an aging adult is experiencing abnormal signs and symptoms first a health history must be completed. The start of a health history is the very beginning of the assessment process (Touhy & Jett, 2012). If the patient is presenting with an abnormal sign or symptom the diagnosis can be revealed in the history. It is possible that the patient’s complaint is a normal sign of aging but a full history and physical examination should be completed. Not all people age the same. After the exam it might be necessary to run further tests to determine the cause. Completing unnecessary tests can be costly and unnecessary but not properly diagnosing can be just as costly. Once the examination is complete and it is unknown if the

The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (1979). Pain is actually the culprit behind warranting a visit to a physician office for many people (Besson, 1999). Notoriously unpleasant, pain could also pose a threat as both a psychological and economic burden (Phillips, 2006). Sometimes pain does happen without any damage of tissue or any likely diseased state. The reasons for such pain are poorly understood and the term used to describe such type of pain is “psychogenic pain”. Also, the loss of productivity and daily activity due to pain is also significant. Pain engulfs a trillion dollars of GDP for lost work time and disability payments (Melnikova, 2010). Untreated pain not only impacts a person suffering from pain but also impacts their whole family. A person’s quality of life is negatively impacted by pain and it diminishes their ability to concentrate, work, exercise, socialize, perform daily routines, and sleep. All of these negative impacts ultimately lead to much more severe behavioral effects such as depression, aggression, mood alterations, isolation, and loss of self-esteem, which pose a great threat to human society.

Old age or the later years of adulthood and the final steps of life begins about the mid-sixties.

Haigh, J Phelps and CW Geib, 2002; T Hirsch et al., 2000 and JA Jore, 2001). They