Gibbs reflection is a tool which is used in the nursing field to reflect on events and occurrences which happens between a patient and a healthcare professional. The events can have negative or positive impacts on the practice of a healthcare professional. A nurse or a student can reflect on many occasions which occurred maybe while in school, personal experiences and what they encountered as they were taking care of a patient with a specific kind of disorder (Noble & Heale, 2017). In this paper, I am going to reflect on my personal experience which took place on my clinical placement as I was taking care of an old person with dementia impairment using Gibbs (1988) reflective cycle. I had to go through the six stages of this model to improve my nursing practice and be able to handle patients suffering from different kinds of infections and diseases.
The second clinical placement of my first semester of my bachelor of nursing was at a nursing care home where I was supposed to attend an old person with dementia impairment (Kiosses et al., 2015). I first had to start talking to this person so that he began sharing his personal experiences with me. While speaking, I found out that he was not able to remember everything that had happened to his past. I was also able to observe that he looked so confused and that he kept on repeating his words and his eyes had a glazed appearance. This old person did not have the capability of standing for long hours. As I kept on asking him a couple of questions, I realized that he was a bit upset as he thought I was asking too much about his personal life (Falck et al., 2017). I was able to understand that he had previously been attended by several healthcare workers and caregivers in the care home, but due to the longtime impacts of this disorder, he was not able to recover easily and entirely at once. Due to the past poor relationship this person had with professional health workers his condition did not seem to improve because he was always afraid of sharing some significant information about his health to them (Morley et al., 2015). Due to his condition, I was also able to note that his friends could despise him and he was lonely which made the situation worse.
At first, I thought this person was pretending and not wanted to share much information about his past experiences with me because maybe he did not trust me. I had to assure him that I was not a bad person and I was only interested in helping him. I felt so sad when I realized he was sincere it is just his health condition and the disorder which made him behave so. I thought of being so much friendly to him so that I can gain his trust. I offered to feed him and talk softly to him so that he cannot get irritated by my questions. I could not believe how the previous nurses and healthcare professional who attended him did not succeed in improving his health condition (Prince et al., 2015). They were also not able to form a strong therapeutic relationship with him which could have helped them a lot in gathering information about this person past experiences and medical records so that they can be in a position to make right medical and treatment decisions regarding his health (Van der Steen et al., 2014). I was surprised to see how his fellow friends could despise him because of his health condition and yet no action was taken against them to warn then about the same.
In my assessment, I think I did the right thing of taking care of an old person who had dementia impairment. Furthermore, I was able to gain skills in my field of study and am not capable of handling patients who have the same disorder as he had. Attending him made me gain interpersonal skills and learn how to approach patients with different health problems and advise them accordingly (Butcher, Mineka & Hooley, 2013). I had the capability to build a strong therapeutic relationship with this person which made me be able to gain his trust and therefore been in a position to gather a lot of information regarding his past experiences, and I could understand what caused the disorder (Davidson & Guthrie, 2017). This has helped me in a situation to do the same with other patients and thus helping them appropriately. I was able to improve my communication skills as I had to communicate more often to this person and sometimes forced to use sign language so that he can remember and understand what I was trying to put across. However, in some cases, it was not easy for me to train this person on how to socialize with his mates in the nursing care home as he had a negative thought about them merely because they used to mistreat him.
To analyze this experiment, I was able to evaluate that my interpersonal skills and relationship with people especially patients had improved which enabled me to provide the best nursing care I could to the old man (Pocock & Sharp, 2017). My communication between me and him was an interpersonal communication because it involved two people and we had to exchange information between us. I realized that the therapeutic relationship which I established with the old man helped me a lot to carry out by nursing care to him and other patients. As the patient had dementia disorder problem, he could keep on forgetting things and experiences, I had to use nonpharmacologic interventions to treat his dementia disorder (Livingston et al., 2017). I also had to actively involve the patient in classroom memory training in which patients with this disorder are taught how to exercise their influence based on what they enjoy doing and motivates them. The patient was able to give me feedback that he was able to regain his memory back after introducing him into this techniques. He was also able to socialize well with his friends as he was now forced to attend classroom memory training.
Conclusion
For my reflection of this reflection model, I was able to explore how therapeutic relationship between a nurse and patient is very significant and how it help healthcare professionals be able to perform their tasks smoothly especially collecting information from the patient (Pariente, de Gage, Moore & Bégaud, 2016). The patient sometimes needed to be able to adjust to the new activities which were made to improve his health condition. At first, as I was asking him a question he looked upset meaning I was irritating him. It is a challenge that I have to work to improve my communication skills so that I can be able to form a strong therapeutic relationship with patients easily. I also had to teach him how to socialize well with others because it is beneficial and they can easily be able to relate well with other healthcare professionals (Johnell, Religa & Eriksdotter, 2013). Apart from involving the patient in classroom memory training, I could also have introduced other treatment and medical techniques to him like somatic treatment and technology-driven brain training.
My action plan for the future clinical exercise is that if I have to attend patients with the same disorder as this patient had, I will have to prepare myself to handle the patient more effectively by administering to him/her the best medication and treatment techniques which can show a significant change in their condition (Afilalo et al., 2014). To be able to do this I have to understand the patient well which means I have to gather a lot of information from them. This can only be possible through creating a productive therapeutic relationship between us. To achieve this, I need to understand them by listening to what they have to say and not judging them and also involving them in decision making (Johnell, Religa & Eriksdotter, 2013). Another critical issue which I have to include in my action plan list is to understand deeply about the disability which a patient has so that in the future in case I develop it or I have to attend a patient with the same am aware of what is expected from.
References
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Davidson, J. G., & Guthrie, D. M. (2017). Older adults with a combination of vision and hearing impairment experience higher rates of cognitive impairment, functional dependence, and worse outcomes across a set of quality indicators. Journal of aging and health, 0898264317723407.
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Morley, J. E., Morris, J. C., Berg-Weger, M., Borson, S., Carpenter, B. D., del Campo, N., … & Ganguli, M. (2015). Brain health: The importance of recognizing cognitive impairment: An IAGG consensus conference. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 16(9), 731-739.
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