Falls lead to severe injuries to the patients (Johansson, Dahlberg, Jonsson, & Patomella, 2015). Caregivers should invent efficient prevention strategies to prevent accidents and the resulting harm. The case study involves a conversation between a tutor and a 75-years-old falls victim. e-health records are an electronic version of the patient’s medical history. Electronically stored information is safer than paper charts. Therefore, health facilities should adopt e-health records to improve the quality of care. This essay will discuss the falls experience of the elderly patient using Gibb’s reflective cycle. The reflection will contain the aspects of description, feelings, values, analysis, and conclusion drawn from the experience.
Description: The case study indicates that the patient experienced falls on two occasions. The first fall left the client with bruises on the nose, chin, right shoulder, and left elbow. The client declined to seek medical attention at the hospital due to his previous unpleasant experience at a health facility. The nurse prescribed Codeine after the patient had waited for eleven hours to receive medical attention towards kidney stones. The client’s wife had to take him to the GP since he could not drive the car due to injuries. The GP took an x-ray scan and referred the surgeon for scan interpretation who realized that the fall had resulted into muscle tear. The patient then visited a physiotherapist who instructed him on how to use his injured arm and the walking aids. The patient’s second fall was due to dizziness; since he was anemic. The risk factors include industrial deafness, diabetes, and hypertension (Wales, Clemson, Lannin, & Cameron, 2016).
Feelings and Thoughts: The patient’s experience is saddening due to the severe injuries and improper care at the hospitals. Falls injured the patient’s left elbow and right shoulder; hence limiting his ability to drive his car. The wife has to abandon her chores to drive him to the GP. The act of waiting for eleven hours to receive care also makes me sad. Health facilities should adopt e-health records to improve the quality of care (Hemsley, Rollo, Georgiou, Balandin, & Hill, 2017). The health department should implement effective strategies to prevent falls in elderly individuals.
Values and Beliefs: I believe that those at high risk of experiencing falls should obtain walking aids from health facilities. Relatives and friends of the senior citizens should accompany them to various locations to prevent them from falling. The client was walking alone from the shop and did not have walking aid leading to his fall. My beliefs and values originate from my experience of caring for falls patients at a hospital in Southern Australia. Preventing the senior citizens from encountering falls preserve them from pain and injury (Cantwell, Morgans, Smith, Livingston, & Dietze, 2017). The patient’s family also gains from the falls prevention strategies as their members avoid pain and injury from the accidents.
Analysis: Various aspects of medical care in the case scenario were inadequate and harmful to the patient. An example of inadequate attention is when the client visited a health facility to seek medication towards kidney stones. The patient waited for eleven hours due to a large number of patients and the low number of caregivers. The care provider later prescribed Codeine to the patient to ease his pain. The experience stopped the client from going to the health facility after falling. The patient had to take painkillers as he waited to visit his GP after daybreak. The surgeon who interpreted the x-ray scan also offered inadequate care to the patient. The health specialist revealed that the falls tore the muscle of the patient. However, he failed to explain the various treatment options to the falls client. Caregivers should disclose essential information to patients to enable them to make informed consent (Cheng, & Lin, 2017).
Apart from the bad and inadequate care, other aspects of treatment were adequate and helpful to the patient. The physiotherapist explained to the patient on how he can use the walking aids and his injured shoulder. The care provider went ahead to provide walking sticks to the falls client. Additionally, the physiotherapist explained the various physical exercise regiments that could aid the patient to recover from the injuries. The specialist handling anemia asked the client to take iron tablets to cure the condition. The drugs would help the patient to gain his body balance and prevent dizziness and falls in future. The gastroenterologist prescribed a pill camera to investigate the causes of the anemia. Caregivers should apply e-health records for safekeeping of patient information. The diabetes specialist instructed the patient to take Metformin for type two of the condition. The caregivers also suggested Indocin and amlodipine handle high blood pressure (Elliott, & Bistrika, 2018).
Conclusion Drawn: The public hospitals in Australia are delaying medical treatment to the patients. e-health record is an effective remedy to speed up care as the caregivers can easily access the patient’s medical history. The client’s experience with falls shows that the occurrences lead to severe pain and injury to the victim. The patient sustained severe injuries from the two falls. The elderly individuals are at a higher risk of falling in comparison to the young individuals (Chatterjee et al., 2017). Falls risk factors include hypertension, anemia, industrial deafness, and diabetes. Anemia interferes with the ability of an individual to breathe. Anemic blood cannot transport oxygen to various organs appropriately thereby leading to dizziness. A person with industrial deafness cannot perceive the sound of approaching objects; thus can easily fall. Remedies for hypertension like Indocin and amlodipine cause dizziness leading to falls. Therefore, falls victims should seek an alternative solution to high blood pressure.
Falls occurrences affect the victims, family, and friends. In the case study, the wife has to drive the patient to the GP thereby abandoning her daily chores. The patient admits that the pains due to his falls are a source of stress to his wife. The falls victims should accept the prevention strategies for their wellbeing and safety. Caregivers should give glasses to falls patients to aid their vision and sight at night. The patient should also wear hearing aids to assist him in perceiving sounds. Moreover, health administrators should ensure that hospital wards are noise-free to prevent patient distraction. Australian health facilities should abandon paper records and adopt e-health records for improvement of care. The health specialists should also encourage the application of telemedicine like pill camera to improve the quality of service delivery (Flodgren, Rachas, Farmer, Inzitari, & Shepperd, 2015). Effective physical exercises eradicate falling incidences and maintain the body fitness.
Action Plan: The first strategy is to replace the paper drafts with e-health records to facilitate the storage of patient medical history. Care providers should encourage patients with industrial deafness to wear hearing aids for perceiving sounds (Jiam, Li, & Agrawal, 2016). Medical practitioners should also provide elderly individuals with walking sticks to aid in their movement. Australian hospitals should embrace technological advancement by prescribing telemedicine to the patients. The care providers should encourage clients to embrace telehealth as it is an upgrade to the current methods. Family members should accompany the elderly individuals to various locations to avoid falling incidences. Health specialists should provide alternative remedies to high blood pressure since the medications cause dizziness. The Australian health facilities should ensure an appropriate solution to anemia as it is a risk factor for falls (Toye et al., 2017). The above-discussed remedies prevent the recurrence of falls among the senior citizens like the one on the case study.
Conclusion
Falling incidences lead to severe injuries to the patients. Therefore, caregivers should implement corrective measures to prevent accidents. The 75-year-old patent experienced two separate falls incidences that caused him harm and pain. Falls cause sadness to both the victim and the family members. Caregivers should provide victims with glasses and hearing aids to minimize the reoccurrence of the accidents. The case study showcases both adequate and inadequate care. Health specialists should suggest efficient prevention strategies.
References
Cantwell, K., Morgans, A., Smith, K., Livingston, M., & Dietze, P. (2017). Differences in emergency ambulance demand between older adults living in residential aged care facilities and those living in the community in Melbourne, Australia. Australasian Journal on Aging, 36(3), 212-221.
Chatterjee, D., Iliffe, S., Kharicha, K., Harari, D., Swift, C., Gillman, G., & Stuck, A. E. (2017). Health risk appraisal in older people 7: long-acting benzodiazepine use in community-dwelling older adults in London: is it related to physical or psychological factors?. Primary health care research & development, 18(3), 253-260.
Cheng, C. T., & Lin, C. C. (2017). The Use of Informed Consent in Clinical Nursing Practice. Hu Li Za Zhi, 64(1), 98.
Elliott, W. J., & Bistrika, E. A. (2018). Perindopril arginine and amlodipine besylate for hypertension: a safety evaluation. Expert opinion on drug safety, 17(2), 207-216.
Flodgren, G., Rachas, A., Farmer, A. J., Inzitari, M., & Shepperd, S. (2015). Interactive telemedicine: effects on professional practice and health care outcomes. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (9).
Hemsley, B., Rollo, M., Georgiou, A., Balandin, S., & Hill, S. (2017). The health literacy demands of electronic personal health records (e-PHRs): An integrative review to inform future inclusive research. Patient education and counseling. 6 (7) 78-98
Jiam, N. T. L., Li, C., & Agrawal, Y. (2016). Hearing loss and falls A systematic review and meta?analysis. The Laryngoscope, 126(11), 2587-2596.
Johansson, E., Dahlberg, R., Jonsson, H., & Patomella, A. H. (2015). Does a falls prevention program impact perceived participation in everyday occupations? A pilot randomized controlled trial. OTJR: occupation, participation, and health, 35(4), 204-212.
Toye, C., Kitchen, S., Hill, A., Edwards, D., Sin, M., & Maher, S. (2017). Piloting staff education in Australia to reduce falls in older hospital patients experiencing delirium. Nursing & health sciences, 19(1), 51-58.
Wales, K., Clemson, L., Lannin, N., & Cameron, I. (2016). Functional assessments used by occupational therapists with older adults at risk of activity and participation limitations: a systematic review. PloS one, 11(2), e0147980.
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