Geriatic Nursing Paper
Geriatric Nursing Paper
Geriatric Nursing Paper
The student was able to spend four hours during two different occasions with Thelma (alias) at her home. Thelma was a 72 year old female. She had many medical diagnoses’s, some of which include: osteoarthritis, diabetes, hyponatremia, and hearing loss. The student was lucky enough to perform an assessment of Thelma’s functional, environmental and psychosocial status during an interview type of process. The tools that were used to perform theses assessments and a brief description and an analysis of the findings will follow.
Functional Assessment Upon interviewing Thelma many tools were used to assess her functional status. The first tool that was used was the Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living (Wallace & Shelkey, 2008). This tool helped to detect subtle changes in health and prevent a functional decline. It did this by measuring the elder’s capacity to care for him or herself. Thelma score was independent in all areas except continence. She had night time incontinence for which she wears briefs while she sleeps. Due to this fact her score was a 5 on a score of 0-6, meaning that she was still at full independent functioning. This Katz ADL can be used as a baseline measurement because Thelma was well but can be reassessed periodically. The next tool that was used was the Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale (Graf, 2008). The Lawton IADL scale assesses a person’s ability to perform tasks such as doing laundry, handing money, shopping, using a telephone and using transportation. The scoring ranges from 0 (low functioning) to 8 (high functioning) for women. Thelma score on this assessment was an 8. She said she did not like to drive at night anymore but this did not change the score. The next assessment that was completed was a vision assessment. Thelma was asked a series of questions about her vision and her eyes and changes that she may or may not
Geriatric Nursing Paper
The student was able to spend four hours during two different occasions with Thelma (alias) at her home. Thelma was a 72 year old female. She had many medical diagnoses’s, some of which include: osteoarthritis, diabetes, hyponatremia, and hearing loss. The student was lucky enough to perform an assessment of Thelma’s functional, environmental and psychosocial status during an interview type of process. The tools that were used to perform theses assessments and a brief description and an analysis of the findings will follow.
Functional Assessment Upon interviewing Thelma many tools were used to assess her functional status. The first tool that was used was the Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living (Wallace & Shelkey, 2008). This tool helped to detect subtle changes in health and prevent a functional decline. It did this by measuring the elder’s capacity to care for him or herself. Thelma score was independent in all areas except continence. She had night time incontinence for which she wears briefs while she sleeps. Due to this fact her score was a 5 on a score of 0-6, meaning that she was still at full independent functioning. This Katz ADL can be used as a baseline measurement because Thelma was well but can be reassessed periodically. The next tool that was used was the Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale (Graf, 2008). The Lawton IADL scale assesses a person’s ability to perform tasks such as doing laundry, handing money, shopping, using a telephone and using transportation. The scoring ranges from 0 (low functioning) to 8 (high functioning) for women. Thelma score on this assessment was an 8. She said she did not like to drive at night anymore but this did not change the score. The next assessment that was completed was a vision assessment. Thelma was asked a series of questions about her vision and her eyes and changes that she may or may not