Geriatric Interview/Teaching Assignment

Geriatric Interview/Teaching Assignment

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Institution]

Geriatric Interview/Teaching Assignment

Introduction

Humans go through a life cycle from their birth till their death. This life cycle includes birth, childhood, teenage, youth, middle age, old age, and death. Old age is a time period in the whole cycle which is most physically challenging. It is a phase when a person is near or beyond the usual life expectancy (a usual life expectancy I the age of 60 years or beyond) (De Nardi, French, & Jones, 2016). At this stage of life, people usually spend time with their children, siblings or in some old age centers senior citizen homes or old age homes, where their proper care could be taken and they could spend the rest of their lives with peace.

Old age does not come alone, it brings with itself various physical and mental ailments. As I have already implied that old age is the most difficult time of a person’s life as he or she has to cope up with all the challenges of life along with decreasing health, both in terms of physical and mental health (Macnicol, 2015). Gerontology is the branch of medicine that deals with all such issues and helps in taking care of these old people with different ailments (Twigg, & Martin, 2015).

Being a Nurse, and that also in the field of Gerontology, I get to work very often with the old people. In encounter senior citizens on a daily basis and learn new things about them every day. I also learn various new ways that how to handle these old people and how to ease them with their daily life challenges. I was recently appointed as a nurse of an elderly man Mr. A who was living in an old age facility near my medical facility. I had to take care of him for almost 9 to 12 hrs daily in the facility.

Discussion

I started by interviewing the gentleman about his general details and his daily routine. Then I further moved on towards asking the details of his medical issues. These questions were related to both his early life, early adulthood, later adulthood, his pans for further life and especially about his health conditions.

The interview had four parts. Each part was strategically divided in the way so that adequate information or knowledge about various life phases of life of the patient can be accessed. This interview was also necessary in order to design a teaching plan for the patient and implement it accordingly, so that the concerns of the patients can be carefully catered and his condition can be gradually improved.

The first part of the interview comprised of questions that were general in nature. These questions were both personal and professional in nature. When asked about his childhood, Mr. A told that he was born to middle-class parents and the technology at that time was not much developed. Television was a new thing for them but his parents strived hard to get them the best education.

The second part of the interview comprised of gathering information in a little more depth. This part comprised of getting information about the early adulthood or young adulthood of the patient. It also contained questions about the relationships that came in Mr. A’s life, especially marriage. When asked about the education at this stage the patient told that he had completed his graduation as it was considered the highest education at that time. He then joined an organization as a sales clerk where he made enough money to support himself and his parents.

The third part of the interview consisted of the questions and queries about the later part of adulthood. The last and the most important part of the interview consisted of the queries related to health and medical condition of the patient.

Findings and Teaching Plan

On the basis of the above-conducted interview, teaching plan was crafted that what strategies could be used in order to improve the mental and physical condition of Mr. A. This plan was specifically designed according to the health needs and demands of Mr. A and would best suit him. If the strategies (as deemed suitable for the patient) remaining successful and garner fruitful results, Mr. A. would feel much better in terms of health, mentally and physically, and can participate in the daily walks of life in a much better way.

At the end of all the discussion, I have made a detailed plan that includes the teaching objectives for Mr. A in the light of the findings of the interview conducted with him. It contains the details of the teaching objectives that need to be developed, the content that will be taught, how it will be taught and the evaluation of the learning objectives in the end.

NR 462 CARE OF THE ADULT AND OLDER ADULT

Older Adult Teaching Project Plan Grid

Student Name_____________________

Interview’s Initials_______________

Subject of instruction________________

Teaching Time: Estimated_____ Actual ____________

Teaching/Learning Objectives

Content which will be taught

Identify Teaching Methods

Evaluation

Of Learning

To help the patient with the joint pain

Warm-up and Cool down techniques

Look for the signs that point towards consulting a physician.

Importance of certain nutrients for the body to strengthen muscles as well as joints.

This objective can be achieved by educating the patient about the importance of joints for the body. The patient can also be educated about the bad effects of Arthritis and how it can be cured by taking some simple measures (Hemmingsson, Gustafsson, Isaksson, Karlsson, Gustafson, Sandman, & Lövheim, 2018).

It was observed that Mr. A. quickly learned the importance of the treatment and agreed to join in for the activities planned for the reduction of his joint pains.

To help the patient with the memory issue due to dementia

Brain Exercises

Daily Walk

Staying Social

This objective can be achieved by staying as much positive as the instructor can and by making the patient do little brain exercises that can freshen up their mind and let them remember their daily little things (Cohen, 2014).

Mr. A. also quickly learned the importance of the treatment of his backache and agreed to join in for the activities planned for the reduction of his back pain. He showed great interest in the therapies planned for this purpose.

To help the patient in muscular pain especially back pain

Physical Therapy Techniques

Medications

Osteopathic manipulation

Acupuncture

This teaching objective can be achieved by both the therapeutic means and non-therapeutic means. Being physically more active and taking proper medication can reduce this issue significantly (Maher, Underwood, & Buchbinder, 2017).

The patient, Mr. A, was also very corporative when the topic of improvement of memory was discussed with him and he assured to corporate at every level.

Conclusions

In short, it can be seen that the interview with Mr. A proved to be a successful. The strategical division of the questions in order to retrieve specific information helped a lot in this respect. Moreover, with a little homework and corporation from the patient’s side (who was also the interviewee), a lot of meaningful information was collected which helped in designing valuable teaching strategies. These strategies helped in improving the physical and mental condition of the patient. Such interviews are very much necessary in order to help and prepare the older citizens of the society for the challenges of daily life and how to cope up with them along with the physical and mental ailments.

References

Cohen, G. (2014). The effects of aging on autobiographical memory. In Autobiographical Memory (pp. 105-124). Psychology Press.

De Nardi, M., French, E., & Jones, J. B. (2016). Medicaid insurance in old age. American Economic Review, 106(11), 3480-3520.

Hemmingsson, E. S., Gustafsson, M., Isaksson, U., Karlsson, S., Gustafson, Y., Sandman, P. O., & Lövheim, H. (2018). Prevalence of pain and pharmacological pain treatment among old people in nursing homes in 2007 and 2013. European journal of clinical pharmacology, 74(4), 483-488.

Macnicol, J. (2015). Neoliberalising old age. Cambridge University Press.

Maher, C., Underwood, M., & Buchbinder, R. (2017). Non-specific low back pain. The Lancet, 389(10070), 736-747.

Twigg, J., & Martin, W. (Eds.). (2015). Routledge handbook of cultural gerontology. Routledge.