Age Care Unit

Age Care Unit

Report On Reflection When Doing Interview with a Patient in Age Care Unit

Introduction

Communication is very important in the healthcare sector since delivery of care relies on it so much that people’s lives could be lost or saved. Some of the information very critical includes finances, prescription and history of patients. This will include information about patient’s demographics, progress report, medical therapies, critical symptoms, problems, previous medical information, immunization, radiology reports and laboratory information. The electronic health records helps in the automation and streamlining of the clinicians flow of work. In regard to the commu8nication problems, it’s necessary that there are ways that will help in assessing the aged patient who will present such problems in communication. The guidelines will be part of the process of identifying and assessing the patient problems like pain, and other critical experiences as well. Before handling the enablers of efficient communication, the following are barriers to communication.

Barriers to Communication in Aged Care

When people grow older the bodies undergo the natural aging process and as a result they cannot communicate efficiently. Old age is directly related to cognitive impairment, reduced mobility, loss of sensory ability and slow thought process. Bearing in mind that there is a very close connection between physical heal and mental state, diagnosis of the patient’s problem may be very difficult (Hadjistavropoulos & Craig 2002).

There are several other aging symptoms that are a barrier to communication, they include; dulled sensory process; confusion and disorientation; short-term loss of memory; anxiety and

Age Care Unit

depression, uncoordinated thought process; and language barrier (Ortiz & Fitten 2000).

Enabling Efficient Communication in Aged Care

Basically is very important the care givers or the medical practitioners get appropriate training that they can be able to make out and there easily perceive the information being conveyed by the patient even if it would be half way or just implied (Cohen-Mansfield & Lipson 2002).

Research has shown that a definite communication enabler can be created this way. Creating or establishing pain assessment tools will go along way in communicating to the providers that the patient is suffering (Mosher-Ashley 1994).

With the advent of technology, it’s very important to note that some of the information will be collected from the patients without disturbing their peace. This includes behavior sensors, inference engines and biological sensors. Some patients even require activity tracking system to monitor them since the older people can go astray without notifying anybody in the hospital (Cohen-Mansfield & Lipson 2002). The use of a personal medication assistant has proved to be one of the efficient ways of getting to understand the behavior of the aged patient and hence communication can be made efficient after these assistants learn to recognize what the patient means when they use a particular gesture, utterance or movement fidgeting. Record keeping and reference to other cases can be very effectual in obtaining certain information (Keogh. & Roche 1996).

Conclusion

The services provision is patient centric and this has been a major objective in the medical sector in many places. The safety of the patient is a serious concern while providing for better health services. The use of newer technology will go along way helping improve care delivery. This is because the hardware facilitates communication and data exchange while providing improved healthcare to the patients and practitioners can be confident when administering the care. Decisions in the medical field will be more informed and patients will get personalized care

Age Care Unit

via streamlined experiences

Age Care Unit

References

Hadjistavropoulos. T & Craig. K.D (2002). A hypothetical Framework For thoughtful Self-Report and Observational procedures Of Pain – A Communications Model. Beh Res Therapy, 2002, 40, 550 – 571.

Cohen-Mansfield. J. & Lipson. S. (2002). Pain In Cognitively Impaired Nursing Home populace – How Well Are doctor Diagnosing It? JAGS, 2002, 50, 1039-44.

Ortiz F. & Fitten L. J. (2000). Barriers To Healthcare Access For Cognitively Impaired Older Patients. Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders, 14, 142 – 154

Brodaty, H.. Harris, L. & Peters, K. (1993). Prognosis Of Depression In The aged – A contrast With Younger Patients. British Journal Of Psychiatry, 163, 590 – 597

Age Care Unit

Keogh. F. & Roche. A. (1996). Mental Disorders In Older Irish People – – Incidence, Prevalence And Treatment. Dublin, National Council For The Elderly

Mosher-Ashley, P.M. (1994). Therapy Termination And Persistence Patterns Of Elderly Clients In A Community Mental Health Care Centre” Gerontologist, 34, 181 – 190