Nursing Coursework Sample

Nursing Care for Older Adults

Question 1: Define ‘elderspeak’ and identify strategies for the nurse to engage in more respectful communication.

Elderspeak refers to a simplified speech register with exaggerated pitch and intonation, simplified grammar, limited vocabulary, and slow rate of delivery. It is used to communicate with elderly adults with verifiable neurological impairment. Respectful communication involves the ability to listen and not interrupt when one is talking. When airing one’s view, an individual should avoid vulgar language and be as polite as possible. It also involves arguing constructively, seeking clarification and being patient. It is necessary to avoid raising one’s voice unnecessarily. A respectful tone and posture promotes respectful communication. Appropriate body language is an essential communication tool too. Ability to control one’s emotions, maintaining logic and avoiding name-calling help good communication. Respectful communication advocates for maintaining eye contact, and paying attention when conversing. It is rude to intimidate people when conversing.
Question 2: Describe strategies effective in communicating with older persons with cognitive impairment.

Special communication strategies are used when addressing cognitive impairment patients. Individuals with cognitive impairment experience problems with their way of thinking, their speech, their memory and understanding. This causes frustrations and agitation in patients with cognitive impairment. For this reason, nurses need to be careful with their communication skills when addressing these patients. It is important to maintain eye contact when talking to these individuals. It helps to address the individual using his or her name and talking to the patient when he is ready to talk. To ensure effective communication, the nurse needs to be patient, focused and polite. It helps to use simple language and keep the conversation short. Words should be well articulated and pronounced slowly. The nurse should avoid arguments, criticism, and complicated terminologies when addressing the patients.

Question 3:Describe two tools that are useful for a basic overall assessment of older adults.

When assessing patients, nurses can use several assessment tools. The best overall assessment tool is SPICES. This is an efficient and effective way to prevent untoward health events as well as track a health condition that is emerging and signal the need for a more in-depth assessment. It is an acronym for common geriatric syndromes. These are, Sleep disorders, Problems with feeding, Inconsistence, Confusion, Evidence of falls, and Skin breakdown. The Mini-Cog assessment tool is a brief screening tool to differentiate those patients with dementia from those without dementia. It has the advantage of being quick and it overcomes the limitations of literacy, educational level, or cultural drawbacks. It consists of recall of three unrelated words and with the Clock Drawing Test. If all three words are recalled, the person is not demented. In the CDT test, numbers are placed in correct order on the cock face and clock hands are correctly drawn to a time specified by the examiner.

Question 4: List factors that make assessment of older adults more complicated than assessment of younger persons.

It is often easier assessing younger people as compared to older adults. The pace of working with older people is substantially slower than for younger people. When carrying out an assessment, the older people are less likely than younger people to ask questions when they do not understand a given point. Older people are often skeptic about treatment because of misconceptions they hold about health, and due to the several losses, they are dealing with already. The young patients have a zest for life and they are active. They have minimal health issues and young families to take care of. With old age come many psychological and physical changes that need to be addressed with care. These conditions make it relatively more difficult to assess the elderly as compared to their younger counterparts.