My Observation

Healthcare and nursing observations

Name

Institutional Affiliation

Date

Student1

FAUZIA NA

There is one client that I work with who has Diabetes and Hypertension. These two diseases are usually seen together, and they are both affected by a person's diet. M.B is 71 years old; she takes medication for both conditions, but over time her lifestyle habits have improved. She had explained to me that she was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes when her daughter passed away. When her daughter passed, she became very depressed and just stayed indoors. She would sit on her bed and eat unhealthy foods that contained high levels of sugar, sodium, and fat. When she got diagnosed with hypertension and diabetes, it motivated her to change her lifestyle habits right away. M.B started to eat less junk food and eat more foods that contained nutrients such as fish and salads. She also began to go to the gym and go for walks around her neighborhood. As her caregiver, I have noticed that she has her days where her eating habits are not the best. There were days when I would run errands with her, and she would want to stop and get food from Mcdonalds, and I would not always be supportive of it. She has made so much progress, so when I see that she wants to eat fatty or fried foods, it does disappoint me. As her caregiver, I always try my best to be patient and encourage her to do things that will help her live a long, happy, and more fulfilling life. I always strive to be a stress reliever for her, but also someone who is still going to want the best for her. Tough love can help to motivate a person to want to change and improve.

Response 1

Diabetes is a common condition in older adults. About 25 percent of adults who are above 6o years are known to have diabetes. Apart from eating habits, people believe that there is a connection between stress and diabetes. A high level of stress makes you have an unhealthy lifestyle, which can lead to stress. The different unhealthy habits include poor eating habits, smoking, high alcohol consumption, and low exercise levels. However, if you love your patient much, let him not pick some fries in MacDonald's. This will help in the fight against diabetes.

Student 2

CHINEDU

Older adults commonly have one or more chronic conditions that gradually accumulate and affect their daily functioning and quality of life. More than 50% of older adults have three or more chronic conditions with distinctive functional consequences for each individual (American Geriatrics Society, 2012). Nurses must address and provide effective nursing care for the acute conditions an older adult may be faced with, as well as the chronic conditions that may be underlying. During my clinical experience within the nursing home, I was tasked with the responsibility of caring for Ms. J.M., who was diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease and was suffering from complications of diabetes mellitus in the form of foot ulcers. These two conditions hindered my patient's ability to adapt to her current status, and these factors made it harder for the nurses who were already in charge of her as well as myself to perform the proper interventions that were needed to improve her conditions.

Nurses can incorporate outcomes and interventions into care plans in conjunction with addressing the needs that are directly related to the primary health conditions (Miller, 2015, p.569). Two nursing outcome classifications that would best promote wellness for my patient would be Pain Control about comfort needs and Safe Home Environment about health promotion needs. Pain control primarily focuses on the patient's pain relating to her diabetic foot ulcers that cause extensive theme pain, and the safe home environment focuses on their condition of Alzheimer's which causes the patient to decline in thinking, behavioral and social skills that disrupt a person's ability to function independently. The two nursing interventions classifications that promote wellness to the patient would be Fall Prevention and Surveillance: Safety. This ensures that the patient does not fall and exacerbate their current conditions and that they are strictly due to losing the ability to completely functioning independently. Caring for an older adult often involves a combination of caring and curing, with the emphasis shifting away from curing and more toward caring as disease conditions progress and accumulate (Miller, 2015, p.569).

Response 2

Statics have proven that most older adults are suffering from chronic diseases. Sometimes caring for them is difficult if you are not providing a cure as well. Thus, medical practitioners need to provide both care and cure. However, most nurses find it challenging to incorporate care plans and interventions in older people because of the tools required to understand a patient care history, which also calls for proper decision making and communication. A proper understanding between the caregiver and the patient is also needed.

Student 3

Monica

Death is a promised occurrence that every person born will endure. Many people experience the deaths of others they may know or love before their life comes to an end, as stated in the text, "personal beliefs about death are shaped by experiences from the time of birth, with the family as the primary influence" (Miller, 2015, p. 578). When I hear the word "death" what comes to my mind is my spirituality, I have Christian beliefs, and this strongly shapes my point of view on the end of life. Personally, I fear the death of those close to me as I value having them in my life. Loved ones and friends are part of what makes life special, in my opinion, and knowing that they can be gone forever is a hard pill to swallow, but it is inevitable. I am curious about the events ensuing death and what a person experiences as their mortal life slips away.

I was 19 years old, the first time that someone close to me died. The grief was handled at the best level that any unfortunate event could be expected to be dealt with in my family. The hardest issue that I experienced surrounding the death was seeing the pain that my family endured. I felt very entangled in the emotions of those around me and was almost in disbelief in the amount of sadness that could be experienced, and the immense yearn for a life that can never be brought back, just remembered and cherished. I believe that when someone dies, there is an afterlife. There is a spiritual world that I find comfort in knowing; I believe that there can be an opportunity to see loved ones once again and having faith in a higher power (God) allows me to feel comfortable and even somewhat of anticipation or wonder about the rewards of the afterlife for a life well-lived. I have never seen anyone die, so I cannot make a note of the experience; however I can imagine that it would be a life-altering experience. My attitudes and previous experiences make me fear the death of a patient. I feel that part of what will give me the ability to care for patients is building a connection of care and trust, but in the future I will have to find a balance as dealing with the death of a patient may be traumatizing if I do not find a way to place the connection between nurse and patient properly. When working with dying patients I feel a strong desire to fix them or make them better; I wish for some things that are not quite medically possible, but with the knowledge and skills I at least know that with diligent work and nursing presence, health care professionals can make even dying patients feel at peace and comfortable and this is something to be appreciated.

Response 3

As a nurse, you must be ready to put up with the death of your patients. Some may get well while others may lose their lives; thus, you must be prepared for both outcomes. However, as nurses, we should be able to offer our best to our patients, even in moments of death. Let them go knowing that someone once cared. Even as you grieve for the loose of your patient, you must learn to stay strong always. You can even choose to offer free counseling to the deceased family when breaking the news to them.

My response

Student 4

TAMMIA

Death is characterized as the cessation of all biological functions. When I hear the word death, I instantly think about religious things. One of them being what is like after this place called earth. Will I go to heaven or hell? I fear death because I do not want to grasp the concept of dying and never coming back to life. Literally, death is "the end" of all. I also think the city I was raised in provokes me to think about death more than others. The murder rate is so high where I live, and I have already begun to experience losing childhood friends and family members to violence. According to Miller, people are confronted with the death of others who are younger than or similar to them in age, and they are- come increasingly aware of their mortality (Miller,2015).

Furthermore, I can vividly remember my experience the first time I lost someone close to me. I was six years old, and my grandmother passed away after battling many illnesses for years. When she died, I was unfortunate, but my family and I were able to find comfort in each other during the grieving process.

Moreover, I have never seen anyone die. I am honestly afraid of how I would handle the experience. Whether I know the person or not, death has always made me emotional. As a future nurse, I know I need to be able to control my emotions during a situation where a patient expires. "Nurses need to learn about clinical aspects of end-of-life care, and they must also take time to process their feelings and concerns (Miller,2015)." Though nurses' ultimate goal is to help all patients sustain life, having experience with death will allow the nurse to cope with it better.

Response 4

If you have never seen someone die and you are still a nurse, expect that this will happen someday. It a horrible experience to wake up in the morning and find that the person you talked to yesterday is no more. Thus, you have to be prepared psychologically. People have different believes about death, depending on ethnic background and religion. Christians believe that there is life after death. However, not any person can explain the cause of death in an individual's life.