Nursing Care for Aged Patients-Free-Samples-Myassignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the role of Community Nurse with aging in place. Answer: Introduction: The growing population of the aged citizens is mainly taking place as the result of the advancement of the medicine in the scientific researches. Different researches conducted over the years have helped the healthcare centers to treat many chronic ailments and cure people which were not imaginable even before a few decades back (Hume, Hume and Johnston 2016). This advancement had helped in the saving lives of the large number of patients and had given the scope of living a longer lives. However although the present mode of treatment had assured a longer life for the aged citizens, however the present methods of treatment had not become successful in providing a better quality life for the old patients. This is said so because, old patients although are provided care from chronic ailments like dementia, Parkinsons diseases, cancer, cardiovascular disease, age related loss of mobility and others but they tend to become self dependent as the factor of age often tends to take away the c apability of self independency (Stanley, Latimer and Atkinson, 2014). Hence, the quality of life that they experience in spite of ongoing successful treatment of modern mode of biopsychosocial care is not satisfactory. Therefore geriatric nurses working in not only community healthcare but also in other sectors have to take upon the responsibility of providing the best care so that they experience better quality lives. The present assignment will contain about the role of nurses in aged care and how do they perform effective practice in community and in home environments. Growing demand of services and geriatric nursing and roles: With the growing population of the old aged citizens, it has become important for every healthcare centers to appoint geriatric nurses working in the field of gerontology who would focus on the caring of old patients. This has become a high demand area as status show that 50% of the population who gets admitted to healthcare centers comprises of old patients only. Geriatric nurses are healthcare professionals who have the special type of clinical expertise to understand as well as treat many complex and mental health needs of older people (Robinson et al., 2014). Their main role is to help the patients protect not only their health but also help to cope with the changes in physical and mental abilities of the patients. This ultimately results the people to not only stay independent but also helps them to be active in every activities as long as possible. There are many older people who do not require hospitalizations but must be treated with proper medication, proper of special equip ments, changes in diet, daily exercises as well as other adaptations. Daily management of the ADLS of old age people often becomes difficult for them and hence the geriatric nurses have to provide assistance to the old age people in such a way so that they not only maintain their dignity and autonomy but also ensure that they completely do not make them dependent (Dwyer et al. 2017). Rather they have to ensure that they only provide assistance in such way so that the old age patients are encouraged to perform their activities and at least try to complete the daily chores by themselves. This is said so because complete dependency of the old patients on the nurses affects their physical mobility and gradually they become more dependent on nurses leading to development of different physical and mental barriers. Hence nurses should maintain the thin line between providing assistance in their ADL and making them completely dependent. The nurses should try to incorporate interventions tha t would make them independent and help them to be physically active to an extent which is possible for them (Jeon et al. 2015). Roles and responsibilities: Community nurses often help to design as well as explain different healthcare regimens to patients as well as their families. They mainly perform the function as case managers who successfully links families with community resources and can teach them how to provide care for their older family members. Some of the most important activities that the community nurses have to perform while working with the older citizens are assessing the patients mental status as well as cognitive skills and thinking powers (Bauer et al. 2013). They should understand the patients acute as well as chronic health issues and thereby discuss common health concerns which include falls, incontinence, sexual issues and the changing sleep patterns. Other responsibilities of the nurse would include organizing of medications and educating patients about personal safety as well as diseases preventions. The nurse should also perform proper explanation as well as the recommendation of the adjustments to the patient s medication regimen so that she can ensure that the patient remains adhered to the interventions. Another important activity of the nurse is to link the patient with local resources to meet the different necessities of his life marinating a better quality lifestyle (King et al. 2012). Nursing competencies in home: Researchers often suggest that geriatric nurses have to perform a number of responsibilities so that they can ensure that they are providing the best care to such old patients in their home as well as in different healthcare centers. They have to integrate advanced knowledge as well as experience in delivering safe as well as effective quality care to geriatric clients in their homes (Beatti et al. 2014). They should demonstrate competence in managing the health as well as health illness status in such a way so that the clients can enjoy autonomy as well as dignity in their life and also feel that they are respected, cared as well as loved by family members and the caregivers and nurses. Justice should also be practiced by the nurses ensuring that no cultural biasness and several religious and cultural beliefs do not get reflected in her practice and that she can provide care in the foundation of humanity without discriminating clients social class, ethnicity, cultural as well as rel igious beliefs. One of another responsibility of the nurses in community care as well as while working with clients at their home is proper monitoring and ensuring the quality health care for the clients by incorporating a proper understanding of the trends in aging in planning and providing primary healthcare for clients (Edvardson, Sandman and Borrell 2014). For this, it must be assured by the agencies and the healthcare centers that the nurses they provide in caring for the clients should be well accustomed and experienced in healthcare to old people. They should continuously increase their knowledge about the different new techniques, methods and principles introduced in geriatric care by different researchers of the world and practice evidence based care while providing care in homes as well as in the community centers. Besides, the agencies who appoint community nurses as well s the community care centers would also ensure that the caring professionals that they provide should demonstrate competencies as well as proper leadership in implementing the role of the nurse practitioner (Sims 2015). Moreover another very important role that they should also perform is the proper engagements in counseling, communication teaching as well as collaboration in a particular manner which will inevitable reflect caring, ethics, advocacy as well as professionals standards. Issues faced and procedure to overcome: A number of issues can be identified while providing care to geriatric patients in home environments. A nurse working as home care workers have to perform their role in widely dispersed settings which makes their work very solitary. The entire responsibility of patient whose mobility is decreased, mental health is affected or suffering from chronic ailments often creates a stress on the nurse practitioners and therefore they tend to get physically fatigued and suffer burn outs (Brownie and Nancarrow 2013). They become depressed while handling palliative care patients as they tend to get affected by the various ailments and the sufferings of the old age patients. Not only that, the number of old age nurses are quite less in comparison to the demands of the services and hence those who are in the profession often has to overwork or serve more than one patients at a time in community cares or can provide less efficient care in the homes. Therefore it is extremely important for the healt hcare sectors as well as the nations to take initiatives to conduct researches over the characteristics of the intended supportive home care environment so that an evidence based treatment with proper settings and resources can be provide to patients. Initiatives required to develop the modern day condition of geriatric nursing will involve conducting of case studies of highly effective community as well as home care programs. This would also include focus on the workforce issues (Edvardson et al. 2015). Proper number of nursing professionals with proper up to date training along with proper knowledge and education in models of delivery, articulation of staff roles, issues around management, coaching as well as nurturing. A growing body of quantitative and qualitative researches is to be conducted to point the various issues that nurses face while providing care to patients and how initiatives can be taken to overcome the issues. Conclusion: The growing urgency to provide service to the increasing population of old aged people has now been recognized by the nation as well as the healthcare sectors. Geriatric nurse shave to provide care which will not only respect the dignity as well as autonomy of the patient but will also ensure that justice is maintained by their practices. Their care should be evidence based which will include providing assistance with daily activities, develop medication and treatment plan, provide proper education to the family members and carers, and ensure competency in practices, management of symptoms and many others. Issues like shortage of nurses, overwork, pressure and fatigue, nurse burnouts, inappropriate availability of resources, improper house environment and others need to be overcome n order to ensure an uninterrupted evidence based care is provided. 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