Placement Setting : Long Term Care

In addition, I have learned that patient safety is at the forefront of nursing and the ability to think outside of the box. Before I had started the nursing program, if I was asked about patient safety my first thoughts would be, what could I do to the prevent the patient from falling, since then I have come to realize that patient safety encompasses so much more. At last my last clinical we had care of the a gentleman who spoke no English, he would just look at us and smile, If it won’t for the use of the interpreter I can see how this patient care would have been affective.

In the article “What Do Nurses Really Do?”, Suzanne Gordon explores what nurses truly do. She concludes that nurses “save lives, prevent complications, prevent suffering, and save money” (Gordon 2006). Nurses provide care for their patients in the physical and emotional sense. Emotionally caring for a patient and being sensitive to his or her needs result from interacting with patients while performing the skills and using the knowledge that nurses learned in school. Nurses grow in their skills, knowledge, and attitudes through practice. Quality and safety education for nursing incorporates competencies that all nurses must use in their practice. These nursing competencies include evidence-based nursing practice, quality improvement, safety, teamwork and collaboration, patient-centered care, and informatics.

Writing my first piece of literature work in 1983, consisted of one simple statement, when I grow up I want to be a nurse. The years 1995-2007 provided valuable experiences as a certified nursing assistant prior to my nine years of nursing. My current position as a nursing professional is in a locked memory care unit of a long-term care community within Cedar Rapids, Iowa. One of my important skills when working in this unit is utilizing critical thinking skills when monitoring wandering residents in order to assess and appropriately treat behaviors associated with illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, through a holistic approach based on evidence-based practices. Furthermore, prioritizing is another one of my important skills for this position also monitors those residing in independent and assisted living areas.

"Are the old real human beings? Judging by the way our society treats them, the question is open to doubt. Since it denies them what they conceive the necessary minimum, and since it deliberately condemns them to the utmost poverty, to the slums, to ill health, loneliness and despair, it affirms that they hold neither the same needs nor the same rights as other members of the community. In order to soothe its conscience, our society's ideologists have invented a certain number of myths - myths that contradict one another, by the way - which induce those in the prime of life to see the aged not as fellow beings but as another kind of being altogether" (Perrin, & Polowy 2008).

Imagine that you are a patient in an hospital in Ontario - you have undergone acute care and are now ready to enter a Long-term care (LTC) facility for additional care. Now imagine that you have entered a complex maze, like the Waterloo County County Corn Maze, only much trickier. Why?

"Many older people fear that a hospital stay could leave them even more disabled than they were before. Unfortunately, there's new reason to believe this fear is justified. Elderly patients who are hospitalized are at much higher risk of cognitive problems afterward, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal Neurology."

“Previous studies showed a high incidence of recurrent falls in people with PD, ranging from 18% to 65% in a 1-year period” (Almeida et al., 2016, p. 1075). Falls are a risk for many people with Parkinson’s disease. People who have Parksinson’s disease and have issues with gait control have frequent falls. Nurses help care for individuals who have Parkinson’s when they enter the care facility. Exercising on a regular basis can help decrease the amount of falls with patients who have Parkinson’s disease. This paper will be located in a long term care facility and discuss how decreasing falls can improve quality of life in patients who have Parkinson’s disease.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the challenges in providing quality care to the elderly. I will conduct an evidenced-based literature review addressing quality improvement initiatives and programs for older adults. Following the literature review, I will describe barriers and solutions of quality programs and initiatives for older adults. Lastly, I will identify the future impact on nursing care of older adults resulting from this experience.

Upon arriving at the long-term care facility and noticing that the toe tag on the decedent did not match the removal authorization, I would immediately inform; the decedents doctors, the decedents nurse, or whoever was in charge of the care of the decedents body at the facility. I would also call the funeral home and get instructions on what I should do next. Most likely, I would tell the facility to call the funeral home back after the body had been properly tagged. After the facility called me back, I would come back and transfer the body to the funeral home. I would follow the same procedures for transferring a body, but I would do everything I could to make sure that I was taking the correct body. It would be helpful in identifying the

Long term health care and end of life care is a reality that is usually inevitable. “Research shows that at least 70 percent of people over 65 will need long term care services at some point in their lifetime” (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2012). There are many decisions that people must make in the event. Don and Mary are a married couple who have to make that decision. Don and Mary served together in the military. After the military they both made careers for themselves. Now they are retired and enjoying life traveling and spending time with family. However, now Mary has developed a disease called Alzheimer’s that has left her with a limited memory and sundowner’s syndrome.

The article examined the issues that affect frail older adults who are being discharged from the hospital. When evaluating the research question it appears to be implied at the end of introduction. The author stated that the paper will indicate how healthcare team members (HCTMs) use the adult protective services (APS) system as a “safety net” when concerns are evident about an older adult’s decision concerning discharge from the hospital (Popejoy, 2008). To justify their research the author explicitly stated how healthcare workers are increasingly finding it a challenge to create discharge plans for older adults, which is due to a lack of services. Older adults make up the largest portion of patients,

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has been working toward transforming the American health care system by reporting their research findings and outlining their vision of an improved health care system (IOM 2010). They have collaborated with a variety of health care professionals and developed an ad hoc committee in charge of examining nursing practice with respect to reforming public health care (IOM 2010). This committee has developed four key messages and eight recommendations for nursing’s role in reforming health care, including nurses’ participation with other health care professionals (IOM 2010). These recommendations are in alignment with the IOM’s Core Competencies for all health care professionals, one of which is to work in interdisciplinary teams (Rubenfeld & Scheffer 2015). The IOM recommends that nurses and health professionals work within a team for improved patient outcomes (Rubenfeld & Scheffer 2015). Within the hospital setting, nurses collaborate with a variety of ancillary services and health professionals. Older adults (aged >65 years) in the hospital are in jeopardy of a decline in functional status. They may benefit from the nurse working with interdisciplinary team members. Functional decline in the hospital setting is often not measured, nor are there protocols in place to prevent this risk factor in many hospital facilities (Lyons 2014).

Shayna, working in a Long Term Facility (LTC) can be very daunting at times. In my personal experience while working in LTC, is the demanding workload placed on staff with minimal staff recourses. My mother has worked in LTC 30 plus years, recently we had a discussion about patients are becoming more diverse, and the geriatric population is changing. One of her concerns was similar to yours, trying to find a balance in providing care that will help individuals maintain or reach their full potential. With lack of communication, increased demands on staff, and a changing population I can understand you feelings of frustration at times. Based on my research the nursing model utilized in your facility is quite beneficial. The apparent issues

A. This is Journal #4. My placement is at Weakley County Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Dresden, Tennessee. The fourth day I attended my placement was on Tuesday, February 16, 2016. I volunteered from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm

There are so many criteria to take into consideration such as age, gender, and monthly payment when deciding whether to buy Long Term Care (LTC) Insurance or be self-insured. The choice to make will be first of all personal as one can decide to take the money he would have put in long-term-care premiums and investing it in a low cost index fund to create his own pool of funds to draw on down the road if need be and avoid the dreaded. According to Howard Gleckman in “Should You Self Insure against Long-Term Care Risk or Buy Insurance?,” one in three aged 65 year old will need no care at all before death while about one in five will need care for five years or more if we guess the remaining living time period is short. Today, the cost of nursing home care is about $80,000-a-year while Home health care can cost about $35,000 and both keep rising. So if one does not need costly supports and services before he