Individualized Aging Assessment

The assessment process is the back bone to any package of care and it is vital that it is personal and appropriate to the individual concerned. Although studies have found that there is no singular theory or understanding as to what the purpose of assessment is, there are different approaches and forms of assessment carried out in health and social care. These different approaches can sometimes result in different outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to perform a holistic assessment of an older adult using the SPICES tool.

Mr. Henry is a 69 year old, African American man. Even though he has complex health needs, he also has valuable strengths. His willingness to be independent, his awareness about his need for medical attention, his disposition to keep taking care for Ertha’s (his wife) needs and his health, his religion that probably gives him the optimism to keep going, and above all, his mental status and functional mobility, which are essentials to quality of life in older adults. He also has his daughter-in-law, who can help monitor his and his wife health, and provide them with education; although, she is a nurse, she lives far from them and is a working mother; this probably limit her time to drive to Mr. Henry’s home and expend quality time with him and

Larry Garcia is a 45years old Hispanic male who was newly diagnosed with hypertension during a work-related physical exam. He has been married for eighteen years and has three children. He has been employed as a sales rep for ten years with the same company. His current position is a high pressured position, but he is performing very well at this present time. His is Catholic but only attends church on holidays. Larry likes to fish in his spare time. His mother has a history of high blood pressure but refuses to take her blood pressure medication, but otherwise she is well. His father has a history of CHF and impaired vision due to macular degeneration.

John is an 82 year old gentleman who lives alone in sheltered accommodation. John’s son and daughter live close and take it in turns to visit daily. John is an ex-smoker who gave up 20 years ago, has long standing hypertension and is overweight having a BMI of 30 kg/m.

Today I spoke with a very outspoken neighbor of mine who was kind enough to participate in my assessment project. Iris L. is her name and she was born in March of 1940, which makes her 76 years old. She has lived in the small town of Archer Lodge, NC since she was born. She has been widowed for over 35 years and has one son who also lives five minutes away. She remains very active within the community but spends a majority of her time with her two grandchildren, ages 9 and 11. She has three sisters who all live within a few minutes of her home. She is active in her church and has lots of community friends that she assist in taking to appointments and says she also enjoys “feeding the shut-ins”. She is retired from a manufacturing job of 35 years but returned to work part-time at Dollar General approximately 8 years ago. She told me “if you don’t keep busy and active, you will go downhill quickly when you retire”.

In searching for resources for this assignment, most of the articles written have at least one thing in common. The baby boomers are getting older, as a result, they will represent 20% of the total population from now until 2030. The number of persons who are 65 years and older is 12% of the population, the life expectancy of 77.9 years has caused this increase. The older people over age 85 is at about 40%, and the number of centenarians is on the rise (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). Longer life expectancies will intensify the demand for competent geriatric nursing care to reduce the years in which function and health are impaired. It is exciting to see that quality geriatric nursing education

My initial reaction after talking to my parents about our health history was mind-boggling. I never took the time out to look into my family history. I am grateful to have the opportunity to take the time out to investigate my family health history. This assignment was extremely necessary and well informative. To begin with, after completing this assignment, I learned that my sisters and I are at high risk of diabetes and hypertension. Let us start off with my father’s side of the family since it is smaller compared to my mother. In addition, my father has diabetes and hypertension; he was diagnosed with those diseases about 8 years ago. His mother (my grandmother), had a lot of diseases such as; Alzheimer’s, diabetes, kidney stone, hypertension, cholesterol, heart disease, and blind in one eye. My grandmother suffered a lot and once she passed away we felt that was the best thing to have happened to her to end her misery. My grandmother ended up passing away in December 2013 at 85 years old. I didn’t get any information on my parental grandfather. My father, on the other hand, has hypertension, and diabetes and many of his cousins have a history of heart problem, murmur in particular. That explains why I was born with a heart murmur (which was resolved in 1995).

There is quite a singificant psychological component here with some psychophysiological insomnia related to his underlying anxiety. Moving forward, treatment of this will be of paramount importance. Alongside this, there are some sleep hygiene strategies that he can work on and we have discussed these in detail and I have given him some written information for this. Alongside this, we have also started discussion about a sleep study to assess whether or not there is any other underlying sleep disorder that could be contributing to his sleep difficulties and also his unrefreshing sleep even on nights when he is sleeping

Aging is a gradual, continuous process of natural change which begin to decline many bodily functions. These changes increase the risk of developing health-related problems within the older adults. The fulmer SPICES is a tool for assessing older populations that focuses on six main conditions which include sleep disorders, problems with eating or feeding, incontinence, confusion, evidence of falls, and skin breakdown. Upon interview/exam if the patient has no problems noted on chart then score will be zero, if patient problem noted on chart and history of problem then score will be 1 and lastly if the problem is found on the day of assessment either in chart or on exam then score will be 2 on the assessment tool (Fulmer, 2007). This assessment used to plan, promote, and maintain optimal function in elderly adults. Also, the SPICES assessment is done regularly that can signal for the need for specific assessment and interventions for these conditions (Fulmer, 2007). This assessment can be used for both healthy and frail older

Assessing and planning care of the elderly is important in enabling the older adult to have the best quality of life in their later years. Understanding their views on living day to day with what they hold dear, will help in planning care for the older person. In this paper, I will interview an older adult and describe various details as well as cultural relations surrounding my interviewed individual. I will perform functional assessments using the Tinetti, Katz, Home Safety, and Barthel tools, which will be included in the Appendix. I will compare any age-related changes and identify more than six preliminary issues that need to be addressed. Lastly, I will propose more than three alterations and

In order to find the patients baseline an assessment of functionality is needed for comparison. When assessing a patient it is important to pay attention to the abilities of activities of daily living regularly. An assumption of Orem’s Self-Care Deficit Theory is that a person’s knowledge of potential health problems is needed for promoting self- care behaviors (Nursingtheory.org, 2013).

at the time of your visit. We have divided the DGA in two parts, each with three

Sleep and rest assessment focus is on the individuals sleep, rest and relaxation practices (Kriegler & Harton, 1992). Mrs. Semanovich and the kids sleep an average of 8-9 hours a night but Mr. Semanovich works long hours. He wakes up early and gets home late also he is going back to school right now, after coming home from work he does homework. Mr. Semanovich sleeps an average of 4-5 hours a night which causes problems within their family structure. Mrs. Semanovich works full time also and cares for the kids before and after school by herself due to her husband’s

This essay will evaluate the extent to which assessment is a fundamental component which adult nurses should adhere to in their everyday practice. In doing so, it will reflect on the bio psychosocial aspects of assessment and in particular the increased emphasis placed on holistic and evidence based-practice. It will give an insight on different types of assessment such as physical, risk and spiritual and various types of assessment tools used to facilitate with this process. It will also analyse why nurses commonly apply a nursing framework or model to organise the data obtained to form a health assessment.