Health Medical Homework Help

Describe and discuss the nurse’s role in health promotion and disease prevention in older adults. Share an example from your personal experience as a RN.

• Name and elaborate on at least three screening/preventive procedure that must be done in older adults.
• Define and discuss three common End-of-life documents that you as nurse must be familiar with to be able to educate older adults.

Watch

None.

Supplemental Materials & Resources

• Visit the CINAHL Complete under the A-to-Z Databases on the University Library’s website and locate the articles below:
  • Newham, R. A. (2013). An internal morality of nursing: What it can and cannot do. Nursing Philosophy, 14(2), 109-116.
  • Hanssen, I. & Alpers, L. M. (2010). Utilitarian and common-sense morality discussions in intercultural nursing practice. Nursing Ethics, 17(2), 201-2011.
  • Epstein, B. & Turner, M. (2015). The Nursing Code of Ethics: Its value, its history. Online Journal of Nursing Issues, 20(2), 33-41.

    Here are the peer discussions I need them by tomorrow at 11 am, it dont have to be very long, 150 words in the body response and one reference. you can rephrase what they are saying and use the same reference.

• REPLY TO:

Jael: Health promotion provides assistance to individuals in changing their lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health focusing on the mind, body and spirit (Meiner & Yeager, 2019).. Disease prevention and health promotion includes primary prevention and secondary prevention. Evidence-based health promotion programs help older adults manage chronic conditions and educate on behavioral risk factors (Brewster et al., 2021). Areas of health promotion that are most important to older adults are medication safety, increasing physical activity, smoking reduction, spiritual health, cardiac health, mental health, nutrition and social health. The nurse’s role in health promotion regarding older adults is to educate this population on how to improve their current health status and maintain optimal health. Health care is continuously changing so it is vital that nurses stay up to date with the current trends and increase their knowledge on current best practices and evidence-based research. Nurses must understand basic human needs, human behavior, human growth and development, ethnic and cultural diversity and also behavior changes associated with older adults. In my personal experience as a RN I find myself calling my grandparents regularly to educate them on how to manage their health especially pertaining to the daily medications they take. They live in Jamaica and sometimes the names of the medications are different from the ones here, so I have to update my knowledge on the different names for common medications.

Prevention screening that should be done in older adults include colorectal screening, osteoporosis, and mammography. It is recommended that ages 50-75 should get their colon screened for cancer (Meiner & Yeager, 2019). After age 75, screening should be based on the individual and prior screening history. Fecal occult screening is recommended yearly, whereas a colonoscopy is recommended every 10 years. Osteoporosis screening is recommended for women age 65 and older. Mammography should be annual starting at age 50 and continue every two years until age 74.

Three common end of life documents that nurses must be familiar with are living wills, advance directives and durable power of attorney. The living will is intended to provide in written form a patient’s wishes relating the use of medical treatments in the event of a terminal illness or condition (Meiner & Yeager, 2019). Anyone that is competent may execute a living will and a living will is not the same thing as a DNR. They are not effective until the attending physician has the document and the patient is determined incompetent, the physician has determined that the patient’s condition is terminal and the physician has written the correct orders pertaining to the living will in the medical record. Advance directives guide the decision-making choices for doctors and caregivers if a person becomes terminally ill seriously injured or is in a coma (Meiner & Yeager, 2019).. The advance directive must be in writing and each state has different requirements for creating legal documents. The durable power of attorney is a legal instrument in which a person designates someone else to make health care decisions at a time where he or she may be rendered incompetent. This differs from a living will because the designated individual may ask questions and assess the situation before making a decision unlike the living will in which all the patient’s wishes have to be followed.

References

Brewster, A. L., Wilson, T. L., Curry, L. A., & Kunkel, S. R. (2021). Achieving population health impacts through health promotion programs offered by community-based organizations. Medical Care, 59(3), 273-279.

Meiner, S. E., & Yeager, J. J. (2019). Gerontologic nursing (6th ed.). Elsevier.

discussion 2 roger:

Elderly persons have the highest chances of suffering from chronic illnesses, hearing loss, diabetes, and depression. Thus, it is essential to promote health and prevent diseases in the elderly to improve their quality of life. If the elderly can live a healthy life, the economic burden will be relieved because less funds will be set aside to take care of their medical cases (Chiu et al., 2020). The health system faces fewer constraints if the elderly are healthy and free from diseases. Furthermore, a healthy elderly population can boost the economic status because most of them are productive and active, thus, influencing the economy positively.

Nurses are expected to play significant roles in the health and preventive measures of the elderly. As a nurse, one is expected to educate the elderly on the importance of constantly seeking healthcare services. Nurses are well equipped with knowledge that regards healthcare. Due to that, they are expected to give good advice to the elderly regarding practices that can endanger their health. Through health education, the nurse can take the elderly through the importance of having a balanced diet, the essence of simple exercises, and also on how to identify opportunistic infections and seek medical attention as fast as possible.

Nurses are expected to facilitate adequate healthcare and treatment for the elderly. Since the nurses come across all kinds of patients, they can identify groups that need assistance in seeking medical services. Some elderly get frustrated when they reach a hospital and fail to find someone who can guide them through the treatment process. As part of the healthcare system, the nurses can guide them through or show them, someone to assist them. Through such actions, the patients will be motivated to seek care anytime they need it.

In other cases, the nurses are expected to offer therapeutic assistance to the elderly. It can be a physical injury that might have been sustained in accidents. The nurses can help treat such injuries. If an older person comes to the hospital with a mental trauma or loss, the nurse is expected to counsel the client and take him through the healing process. Psychological issues in the elderly need to be handled with a lot of care because they can lead to a general malaise.

As a registered nurse, I have been dealing with the elderly persons whose blood pressure levels have been very high in the past few weeks. Most of these patients have been complaining of stress from their daughters and sons. Most of the issues revolve around neglect, mistreatment, and lack of respect from their children. Due to that, these elderly persons have found their blood pressure rising above the normal levels putting them in danger of becoming hypertensive. To effectively help them, I had to get in touch with their families and offer family counseling.

All the elderly should consider blood pressure screening once every six months. Most of the diseases that the elderly face can be detected once the blood pressure has been taken. Blood pressure talks volumes about the health of an individual, the average rates of an individual are supposed to be 120/80 even though they vary according to different conditions. Breast cancer screening is highly recommended; for further preventive measures, these women can be encouraged to do breast examination every once a month. Regular breast examinations help identify cancer in early stages and stop it from spreading further (Magal & Riebe, 2019). The elderly are also supposed to be regularly screened on their cholesterol levels to prevent heart diseases that are very common among the elderly.

It is essential in educating the elderly on the different end-of-life documents that they need to be aware of to leave those behind with a plan of what they wish. One of them is the last will. It is a detailed document showing how one has divided his property among different individuals, including their relatives and in rare cases, strangers. A choice should have an executioner who will carry out the instructions. Another one is the living will. It states the end-of-life medical wishes if one cannot declare them at that time—for instance, one to be put in a CPR or not. The last document is the durable power of attorney document (Einstein et al., 2018). It is a document where one appoints an agent or attorney to manage the affairs that they cannot run for themselves.

References

Chiu, C., Hu, J., Lo, Y., & Chang, E. (2020). Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Interventions for the Elderly: A Scoping Review from 2015–2019. International Journal Of Environmental Research And Public Health, 17(15), 5335. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17155335 (Links to an external site.)

Einstein, D., Ladin, K., & Mathew, P. (2018). The Ethical Imperative of Healthy Paternalism in Advance Directive Discussions at the End of Life. JAMA Oncology, 2(4), 429. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaoncol.2015.6349 (Links to an external site.)

Magal, M., & Riebe, D. (2019). New preparticipation health screening recommendations. ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal, 20(3), 22-27. https://doi.org/10.1249/fit.0000000000000202