Geriatric health assessment.
A report that was given by Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) in 2014 indicated a continuous increase in the percentage of elderly population in America. This showed increased life expectancy among people as a result of improved medical services. These medical services involve; primary care, early detection and better treatment of chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart diseases. This calls for the healthcare sector to focus on the elderly people by delaying or early detection and treatment of the degenerative disorders associated with aging. For the health care providers to treat the elderly efficiently, there is need to understand physiological changes that occur with age so as to differentiate between normal changes and those related to illness. A comprehensive assessment is crucial for them to identify appropriate interventions to be implemented in an elderly person.
There are important areas of focus one should concentrate on while assessing the health status of an elderly person (Chikura, Conroy & Salvi, 2018). History being the foremost is collected through interrogating the patient or the family member who accompanies them. This will give a hint to the clinician carrying out the assessment on the areas to focus more on during the assessment. Physical appearance findings through assessing the skin, hair, and nails depict the level of care the person has been getting, environmental status of the area of residence and nutritional status.
Functional status of the body systems is another element to be assessed. This includes cognitive functioning like attention, memory, language, and perception, musculoskeletal functioning entails balance, gait, posture and ability to ambulate (Ward & Reuben, 2016). The elderly’s fall risk is also assessed to determine the level of degeneration of bones. On top of all this, social, financial, spiritual and psychological concerns must be determined during the assessment.
During the assessment, the nurse should be keen to note the goals of care and the palliative care they prefer to go through when the time comes (Johnson, 2018). This will enable the nurse and the concerned members to plan the care that will match the elderly’s wishes. Through this, the nurse will ensure satisfactory care is given and greater results will be achieved through either conservative or curative measures aimed at sustaining the health of the elderly.
References.
Chikura, G., Conroy, S., & Salvi, F. (2018). Clinical Assessment and Management of Older
People: What’s Different?. In Geriatric Emergency Medicine (pp. 75-90). Springer,
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Johnson, S. B., Butow, P. N., Kerridge, I., Bell, M. L., & Tattersall, M. H. (2018). How Well Do
Current Measures Assess the Impact of Advance Care Planning on Concordance Between
Patient Preferences for End-of-Life Care and the Care Received: A Methodological
Review. Journal of pain and symptom management, 55(2), 480-495.
Ward, K., & Reuben, D. (2016). Comprehensive geriatric assessment. UpToDate2013.
http://www. update. com/contents/comprehensive-geriatric-assessment.
