Senior Loneliness

Developed by Dr. William Thomas in 1992, the Eden Alternative aims to decrease older adults loneliness, helplessness, and boredom (Tavormina, 1999). Since it originated, many facilities intended on improving the quality of life for older adults and have therefore adopted key elements of the model. The Eden Alternative focuses on improving the quality of life of nursing home residents and creating a homelike setting by enabling the older adults to interact with pets, plants, and children by empowering staff to bring about these changes (Coleman, et al., 2002). The benefits of implementing such a model include decreases in behavioral incidents and use of restraints, as well as in staff absenteeism and turnover. A series of behavioral studies conducted before and after Eden implementation at Providence Mount St. Vincent, a large senior-living care facility in Seattle, also found increases in older adults satisfaction and activity engagement (Boyd, 2003; Thomas, 2003). Qualitative interviews conducted at two other facilities in the United States revealed older adults’ beliefs that their lives had improved, and that the goals of alleviating their loneliness, helplessness, and boredom had been achieved (Kruschke, 2006; Parsons, 2004). It is important to understand older adults thoughts, but also important to gain an insight on the clinical aspect as

A knowledgeable nurse understands the needs of a patient and designee and incorporates it in patient care. It is important to gain knowledge regarding a patient’s health care preferences, limitations, and cultural, spiritual and ethical values. This form of knowledge can be achieved by an admission assessment and simple communication that can build into a trusted patient and nurse rapport. Furthermore, a nurse must keep in mind that not all patient have the same form of communication. Due to certain barriers related to health and disability, a nurse must quickly adapt to a new form of communication and rely on a patient’s trusted support system such as a designee or a family.

My philosophy as a nurse revolves around compassion and respect. As a nurse, one must respect an individual no matter what race, economic status, disability, sexual orientation, or religious belief the person has (American Nurses Association [ANA], n.d.). When one is able to respect others and truly care, the healing process begins. Not only does respect and compassion involve the patient but the family members is involved as well. Family members deserve to be comforted and cared for. As a pediatric nurse, I spend a great deal of time educating and advocating for my patients and family members.

Family-Centered Care in Nursing: A Concept Analysis Jessica Giangrande, RN, BSN Georgia Southern University (intro) “Family-centered care” is a term heard often in healthcare settings and in nursing practice. Family-centered care has been recognized as being an integral part to patient health, satisfaction and health care quality (Kuo, et al, 2012). Family-centered care is implemented with the goal to increase partnerships between, families, patients and providers; and has been prioritized as a core-concept of quality healthcare (Gallo, Hill, Hoagwood & Olin, 2016) Many professionals, however, would be hard-pressed to state what the term “family-centered care” actually means and how it applies to nursing practice. They would be at a loss for how to implement family-centered care and what is absolutely necessary to have in order for family-centered care to be successful. Advanced practice nurses are faced with the challenge of adhering to family-centered care in their practice. Illness, both chronic and acute, and health does not just affect the patient involved in care. Illness and health affect the patient, their children, their spouses, their parents, their brothers, their sisters, their grandparents and anyone else involved in their life. Research by Davidson (2009) supports the idea that the perceived effectiveness of communication between healthcare providers and the patient’s family is related to the overall satisfaction of care. Advance

Transforming Practice Patients, in any healthcare setting, deserve respect and care that is centered on their unique needs. Nurses and health care are required to assist them to achieve this goal. Changing the health care system will require us to reestablish our

 Week 4 Later Adulthood Development Report Tonya Gray BSHS 325 September 28, 2014 Marcy Stern Week 4 Later Adulthood Development Report Introduction As adults enter the stage of later adulthood, many changes will begin to develop for each person. The aging process includes transitioning from work life to retirement, changes to roles, social positions, social policies,

The Person (Patient) All nursing philosophies will have differing definitions of the four metaparadigms of nursing; however, all share a common and important focal point: the patient. Of the four concepts, the most important is the person and the four concepts are related in that they all work together to improve patient care. Nursing theorist, Jean Watson, emphasizes the personal relationship between patient and nurse in her Human Caring Science Theory, wherein she highlights the role of the nurse in defining the patient as a unique human being to be valued, respected, nurtured, understood, and assisted (American Nurses Association, 2015). As nurses we must see our patients as much more than just a physical human being – the person represents individualized needs, culture, and behavior. Nursing care is planned on the basis of the patient’s physical, mental, social, and spiritual needs – it sees the wholeness of the patient. A patient’s cultural preferences and comfort level should also be taken into account. All patients should be given the autonomy to make informed decisions about their healthcare plan and feel satisfied with their care.

To shape a beneficial relationship is to know about lived experiences, aspects of a person’s conditions and reality, and avoiding assumptions based on the person being cared for (Swanson, 1993). A relationship that a nurse forms with the person is vital as it expands opportunities towards exceptional care. Moreover, another crucial attribute of caring are the actions taken by a rational nurse. Actions performed by nurses should involve comfort, protection, nurture, and competence. Most importantly, a nurse’s actions should ease and alleviate a person’s well-being. Caring is exhibited through the sincere and effective actions performed by nurses. Careful actions must be taken into consideration to avoid making

The elderly that are more at risk of isolation include those who reside in urban areas (Dwyer and Hardill 2011), as urban life damages kinship bonds and personal relationships (Simmel 1903). Around half of the elderly over 80 years old report frequent isolation (Dykstra 2009), so prefer to spend more time in the private sphere, notably the home (AARP 1996) as it possesses memories and nostalgia (Gregory et al. 2009 p.340) thus

This video grounded me once more by sweeping me back to the days that I was an eager novice nursing student with fresh eyes, ready to take care of every aspect of the needs of my older patients. During the beginning of my nursing career, I ensured I had enough time to explore the depths of my patients emotional, cultural, religious, and social background. Nowadays with the lack of time and the demand to spend more time charting electronically, I am forced to cut my personal interaction time with my patients. This is detrimental to the elderly as he or she will need additional time due to the aging process. In the video, this poor old woman must feel frustrated being trapped in her old body, although proud of her past. Through her journey in life, she has experienced good times and bad, learning through it all. Near the end, she has succumbed to the sentence of being mortal. Reminiscing about her life over the years brings forth her dignity as she is feeling judged by her caretakers. Her view has provided me a glimpse into what my future may hold as an elderly woman. As a result, I will be changing my practice by being more patient with my older patients when passing medications, turning and repositioning, ambulating, and assisting with activities of daily

The nursing theorist I chose to discuss is Dr. Jean Watson’s. I chose Dr. Jean Watson because I believe and agree with her nursing theories. Dr. Watson’s theories take into consideration the mind, body and spirit of the patient as a whole. She believes that it is not

According to the National League for Nursing the core values of a nurse are caring, excellence, diversity, and integrity (National League for Nursing, 2014). I believe it is important to be an advocate for our patients. Sometimes the patients are not able to speak for themselves and sometimes there are not family members present to speak up for the patient. Sometimes the nurse has to be there to advocate for the patient to make sure he or she is receiving the care that he or she needs. According to the author Beth Perry a nurse is able to keep the patients dignity by “advocat[ing] for patients’ wishes when the patients were not able to advocate for themselves” (Perry, 2005, p. 44). This is when the patient needs a nurse the most; this speaks

It can be very frustrating at times dealing with the family members of the older patient that I see in the emergency room. I have such limited time to take care of everyone’s needs before the next patient comes in by ambulance that I often forget how the family feels seeing their parent on an emergency room cart in pain and confused. My definition of the comfort I can provide in the emergency room are often very different from the family’s expectations. According to Gerontological Nursing (Tabloski, 2014), the attending nurse needs to understand the patient and family’s goals, wishes and values to attend to their

Social Isolation and Loneliness among elderly Howetta Queenborrows Introduction to Gerontology Professor: Alda Tee October 27th, 2014 As we get older, our social connections often gets smaller, only having things or people that are extremely important to us. In this paper we will be examining the social-psychological problems; social isolation and loneliness that are faced by elderly by facilitating the response to five main discussion topics. The following discussion will facilitate the understanding of social isolation and loneliness, the risk factors, explore the prevalence of social isolation and loneliness in long term care facilities and the role of occupational therapist assistants and physiotherapist assistants have this emerging issue of social isolation.

The Qualities to Be a Great Nurse Health care providers have the opportunity to work closely with patients from their best to worst moments. Nurses are the providers most involved in a patient’s journey to recovery. The former Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden stated on a White