CARE OF TH C475 Competency #3 Health Needs of Older Adults

Competency #3 Health Needs of Older Adults  There are three types of assessments: Physical, Cognitive, and Functional. – Physical assessment is for assessing the patient's physical health. It i ncludes vital signs, assessing for pain, blood pressure problems, irregular heartbeat, abnormal breath sounds, etc. You should know these, because as a nurse you must always assess the patient. For older adults, cognitive function should also be assessed. – Functional assessment is for assessing what older adults can still do for themselves. Bathing, eating, getting dressed, brushing their teeth; all are functional abilities. These abilities can be compromised due to physical impairment and illness. Dr. Katz and Dr. Barthel developed ADL/IADL indexes to measure a patient's functional abilities. You should have noticed that ADL is used throughout the book. This is because the ADL index can determine a patient's care plan. It determines whether patients are safe in their current environments, and impacts their ability to participate in health promotion and disease prevention. – Cognitive assessment addresses thought processing, thinking and reasoning skills. Explain the normal cognitive changes as a result of aging. Dementia is not normal. Describe the difference between delirium and dementia. Describe the use and purpose of the various special tools that have been proven to produce accurate results for assessment of the older adult. Explain the acronyms for the tools CAM, MMSE, CDT, and SPICES.  Describe the pain assessment tools, and explain how unrelieved pain can lead to prolonged hospitalization.  Explain CDT (Clock Drawing Test), commonly done with the Mini-Cog evaluation.  Physiological age-related changes make the older adult more susceptible to adverse drug reactions. There are some key important factors to address when assessing medication and the older adult - Five Rights of Medication Administration - The most common drugs that alter lab results - Polypharmacy - why is the older adult more apt to polypharmacy? - BEER’s List of Inappropriate drugs to use in older adults MAP- this means medication assistance program is a choice you can offer your patients who cannot pay for their medication.  You should advise your patients to become very familiar with their pharmacists. Recommend that patients use only one pharmacy for all medications, including over the counter (OTC) and herbal remedies. The pharmacist can alert the patient to potential drug reactions. This study source was downloaded by from CourseH on :29:07 GMT -05:00