Prevention of Heat-related Illness in Clients who are taking Psychotropic Medications

Prevention of Heat-related Illness in Clients who are taking Psychotropic Medications
Background
With the fast climate change that is happening, it is getting hotter and hotter all the time, and hot weather is often linked to more sickness and death. People who take mental drugs are more likely to get sick because heat affects how these drugs work in a bad way. (Westaway et al., 2015). Mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and stimulants are all types of psychotropic drugs. Most of the problems that come from heat can often be avoided. People often take drugs that affect the mind. Westaway et al. (2015) say that they are among the medications that interact with the thermoregulatory response in different ways. This makes it more likely for people who take them to get dehydrated and get sick from the heat. Schmeltz and Gamble (2017) say that “physical injuries and deaths due to heatwaves, floods, and vector-borne diseases” are some of the effects of extremely hot weather on people with psychiatric illnesses. During hot weather, these groups of people have a higher average risk of getting sick from the heat than other people do. (Westaway et al., 2015). Schmeltz and Gamble (2017) agree that a number of studies show that people with mental health problems are more likely to be hospitalized because of the heat. For example, in a meta-analysis that looked at six case-control studies and 1,065 patients, it was found that psychiatric illnesses were most linked to heat-related deaths. (Schmeltz & Gamble, 2017). It’s too bad that most people in this group don’t know the bad affects that heat could have on them. So, it’s important to teach them and give them information before the hot weather season starts. By making them more aware of the risks of dehydration and illness caused by heat, they will be more likely to take the right and doable steps to protect themselves during the hot weather season.

Target audience

Clients who are taking psychotropic drugs are the focus of this lesson plan. This includes people who have been identified with psychotic or mood disorders, addiction, or problems with how their brain works. During the hot weather season, they are much less able to make smart decisions. People with mental health problems are at a high risk when heat affects their mental health and behavior. With predictions showing that more people will be exposed to extremely hot weather in several American places, especially in the south, it is important to teach the most vulnerable groups how to deal with illnesses and deaths caused by the heat. (Cooper, 2018). Climate change is making sure that the weather will continue to be very hot, and the temperatures will continue to rise from season to season. Extreme heat makes the signs of mental health problems worse, like making people more agitated, tired, and angry. Cooper (2018) also shows that extreme weather is linked to 4% more violence between people, 14% more violence between groups, and more anger. This is shown by the fact that there is more fighting in prisons when it is very hot outside. (Cooper, 2018).

Cooper (2018) says that enough evidence from earlier studies shows that heat stress makes it hard to do cognitive tasks. People with mental health problems or who use drugs are more likely to be hurt by the effects of climate change, such as high heat. (Cooper, 2018). The problem is made worse by things like poverty, living in houses that aren’t up to code, and not having easy access to cool places. (Summer Heat and Sun Risks When Taking Psychiatric Medications, n.d.). Patients with mental illness who are able to do some things for themselves may not be able to do so when it is very hot outside. Their ability to be on their own and make decisions is limited. (Schmeltz & Gamble, 2017). So, they have a high chance of getting heat stroke and other illnesses that come with it. To improve the health and standard of life of a country, it is important to educate this group of vulnerable people.

Goals

The goal of this lesson plan is to teach people who take psychoactive drugs about the dangers of heat-related illnesses and how to avoid them when it’s hot outside. As people who work in health care, it is our job to make sure that mentally ill patients are safe from things in the surroundings that could make their psychotic symptoms worse. Working with other departments like social services, public health, and emergency response, this teaching plan aims to make this vulnerable group of people more aware of how extreme heat can affect their health as they continue their psychotropic treatment. By making this group more aware of how vulnerable they are to other diseases during the hot weather season, they will be more likely to take it upon themselves to use preventive and intervention strategies in their daily lives to protect themselves from the bad effects of extreme heat. This lesson plan is meant to help make this happen by meeting the following goals:

The student should be able to do the following by the end of the session:

List the things that make this group weak when it is very hot outside.
Show that they understand how using psychiatric drugs can make their health worse during times of very hot weather.
List and show that you understand the ways to protect yourself from the bad effects of heat during times when it is very hot.
List and show that you understand the different things you can do to protect yourself from the bad effects of heat during times when it is very hot.

Strategies for teaching

The first method is to give a talk. Almost every classroom today uses the lecture method, which is a popular way to teach. The lecture method has been shown to work, especially in big groups, because it is easy for the instructor to get the information to the audience in a short amount of time. Since this group may have trouble processing information, a lecture is a good way to get information across in a clear and accurate way. Bastable (2019) says that the teacher has the chance to pick out the most important knowledge and give it to the students. It might be hard to talk to this group of people successfully, so the instructor needs to have special communication skills to help the group understand the important information. To get the message across, it’s important to have skills like making a point, getting people interested, testing their understanding, giving examples, and using different tones. Since this is silent learning and the people learning are not doing anything to learn, they tend to get bored. When digital media is used in learning activities, it brightens the mood and makes the action more personal and interesting.

Digital tools will be used as the second way to teach this group. When technology is used in a classroom, students are much more interested in what they are learning. (Bastable, 2019). Tablets and interactive whiteboards are two types of digital media. These would be used to show videos of the interventional tasks that the program wants to teach the learners. They would only be used for video materials that help with learning.

Materials for teaching

For this session, brochures and a PowerPoint presentation will be used as teaching resources. PowerPoint presentation is a piece of software that lets you show information in the form of text, diagrams, and pictures that move. If the same information is given in different ways, it’s easy for the audience to figure out what’s going on. The slides in a PowerPoint show make it easy to give clear and precise information. (Bastable, 2019). The teacher only talks about the most important things.

Using cooling systems for those who can afford them is one of the protective measures that will be taught through PowerPoint. (Cooper, 2019). Also, the use of an earpiece that measures the amount of heat exposure and sounds an alarm when someone is in the heat for too long. (Matsumoto, 2019). Matsumoto (2019) says that the fact that the smart earpiece is mostly used by older people in Japan shows that it works for other vulnerable groups as well. Except for people taking mental drugs, the device works very well with homeless people, people who live in shelters, and people in residential programs. (Matsumoto, 2019). The earpiece sends sounds or spoken words to the user to tell them to drink some water, or it alerts a caretaker or the emergency unit that is connected.

The learners will learn about the main signs and symptoms of heat-related illnesses, and they will be given the phone numbers of the right people to call for help. Some of the signs are being thirsty, sweating a lot, passing out, and being confused. (Summer Heat and Sun Risks When Taking Psychiatric Medications ,n.d.). The signs include feeling dizzy, having low blood pressure, having a lot to drink, being very tired all the time, and flushing. (Summer Heat and Sun Risks When Taking Psychiatric Medications, n.d.). When these signs show up, you should call your doctor, guardian, or a family member right away. The benefit of using PowerPoint is that it makes it easy to teach and share accurate information. It also has a number of things, like audiovisuals, that keep the students interested in the learning activities. (Bastable, 2019). The main problem with this method is that it does not work for all kinds of students. Most of the time, it works for people who learn quickly and leaves behind those who learn slowly.

Brochures will be used to get around this problem, especially with a target group that has trouble thinking. Most of the brochures will be pictures, with short descriptions written in simple language below them to make them easy to understand. Using pictures of fire flames to show how hot it is and pictures of people who are more at risk will get the point across. When learners need to focus on something, bold and underlined words will draw their attention to the important information that is meant for them. The paper will have extra information like numbers to call in case of an emergency. This information will be available to everyone. They will be given to everyone, so each user can go through them at his or her own pace. Both fast and slow learners can use the handouts. If someone missed something in the PowerPoint show, they can still find it in the brochure, which has all of the information from the presentation.

a way to measure

The teach-back method will be used to test the learners’ physical skills by having them use the wearable earpiece. This is a simple way for the teacher to figure out if the students got the presentation or not. Learners show they understand a subject when they can rewrite an idea from their own point of view. Learners will have a chance to ask questions and get more information about things they don’t understand before the lesson ends. Based on the answers to these questions, the teacher will be able to figure out how well the class understands the idea. If there are things that aren’t clear, the teacher will explain them in more detail.

After this learning lesson is over, the students will take posttests to see how well they learned. The post tests will check how well the students understood what was said in class. Posttests are a good way to evaluate a big group of students, and they will work well with this group, which was mostly taught through lectures. After up to 72 hours, you’ll get feedback, and the teacher will go over the parts that were hardest to understand again. This will depend on where most of the teachers get the lowest scores. Feedback is a very important part of the learning process. It makes the student more confident, more self-aware, and more motivated to learn. In the end, it improves learning and makes it easier to judge success.

Content outline/things to talk about

Things that make people who take psychotropic drugs a fragile group during times of very hot weather.
How people’s health can get worse when they use mental drugs when it is very hot outside.
Signs and signs of illnesses caused by heat.
The ways that people who take mental drugs can protect themselves from the bad effects of heat during times when it is extremely hot.
During times of very hot weather, people who take psychotropic drugs can use these intervention techniques to protect themselves from the bad effects of heat.

Plan for teaching

People who take psychotropic drugs are the target group.

The goal is to teach patients and caretakers about the effects of heat-related illnesses and how to avoid them when it’s hot outside.

Goal: to teach people who take psychoactive drugs about the risks of heat-related illnesses and how to avoid them when it’s hot outside.

Objectives:

Patients and those who care for them will be able to:

List the things that make this group weak when it is very hot outside.

Behavioral goal: thinking

Outline: the things about psychotropic drugs that make people more likely to experience bad side effects.

Lecture is the method of teaching.

Time allotted: 10 minutes

Brochure and PowerPoint show are useful tools.

Post-testing is one way to judge.

Show that they understand how using psychiatric drugs can hurt their health during periods of very hot weather.

Behavioral goal: thinking

Outline of the content: how psychiatric drugs make the risk of bad side effects higher.

Lecture is the method of teaching.

Time allotted: 10 minutes

Brochure and PowerPoint show are useful tools.

Post-testing is one way to judge.

Write down the signs and symptoms of illnesses caused by heat.

Behavior goal: intellectual

Outline of the content: the signs and symptoms of illnesses caused by heat.

Lecture is the method of teaching.

Time allotted: 10 minutes

Brochures and PowerPoint are used as resources.

Posttests are the method of grading.

List and show that you understand the ways to protect yourself from the bad effects of heat during times when it is very hot.

Behavior goal: cognitive and physical skills

Outline: the ways to protect yourself from the bad effects of heat during times when it is very hot.

Lecture is the method of teaching.

Time allotted: 15 minutes

Brochure and PowerPoint are useful tools.

Evaluation method: posttest

List and show that you understand the different things you can do to protect yourself from the bad effects of heat during times when it is very hot.

Behavior goal: cognitive and physical skills

Outline: Interventions that can be used during times of very hot weather to protect people from the bad effects of heat

Lecture is the method of teaching.

Time allotted:15 minutes

Brochure and PowerPoint are useful tools.

Evaluation method: posttest

References

Bastable, S. B. (2019). Nurse as Educator Principles of Teaching and Learning for Nursing

Cooper, R. (2018, June 26). Extreme heat and mental health: Protecting patients. MDedge. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.mdedge.com/psychiatry/article/168917/depression/extreme-heat-and-mental-health-protecting-patients

Matsumoto, K. (2019). “An earbud-type wearable (A hearable) with vital parameter sensors for early detection and prevention of heat-stroke,”. Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), pp. 7049–7055. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://doi.org/doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2019.8856821.

Practice. (5th ed.) Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning

Schmeltz, M. T., & Gamble, J. L. (2017). Risk characterization of hospitalizations for mental illness and/or behavioral disorders with concurrent heat-related illness. PLOS ONE, 12(10), e0186509. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186509

Summer Heat and Sun Risks When Taking Psychiatric Medications. (n.d.). NJ Department of Human Services Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services. Retrieved November 11, 2020, from https://www.nj.gov/humanservices/dmhas/resources/mental/Summer HeatSunRisks.pdf

Westaway, K., Frank, O., Husband, A., McClure, A., Shute, R., Edwards, S., Curtis, J., & Rowett, D. (2015). Medicines can affect thermoregulation and accentuate the risk of dehydration and heat-related illness during hot weather. Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 40(4), 363–367. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpt.12294

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