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Running head: HEALTH PROMOTION PROJECT 1

Older Adult Health Promotion Project

NUR 4113: Gerontological Concepts and Issues

Maxine Audet

April 15, 2018

“I pledge…”
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Introduction

The client is a 72-year-old white male. He appears well developed and is in no acute

distress. He speaks with a thick accent and is at times difficult to understand. He is originally

from a small farming village in Canada but moved to America approximately 50 years ago. He

speaks fluent English and does not seem to have any problems with writing or comprehending

the English language. His first language is French but since moving to America, he does not

often put his French into practice. He has very limited education, having dropped out of school

after 5th grade. When discussing his medications, it became very clear that he had limited

understanding of his medications. Additionally, he verbalized that he did not know much about

his medications and that he is interested in learning more about them. We discussed coming up

with a plan for him to learn the basics about his medications.

The main goal of Healthy People 2020 is to “improve the overall health, function, and

quality of life of older adults” (Healthy People 2020, 2018). This plan will allow the client to feel

more empowered now that he will be aimed with the knowledge of what his medications are and

how they work. It is important that he knows about his medications, their names, and what they

are used for, so he can tell his various health care providers in an effort to reduce any adverse

drug interactions. Also, he should be aware of any negative side effects of the drugs and things

that he should be monitoring for.

Nursing Diagnosis

The nursing diagnosis used for this client was deficient knowledge as it seemed the most

fitting after his verbalization that he did not know much about his medications and wanted to
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learn more. It is important for him to learn about his medications to help him feel more

knowledgeable and empowered regarding is health and he may feel better about making health

decisions without the help of his adult daughter. The short-term outcome for this nursing

diagnosis would be that the patient will be able to verbalize the indications for each of his

medications by the end of the last teaching session, which was on 4/1/18. As far as long-term

outcomes, I would hope that in 1 month from the last teaching session, he would be able to

verbalize all information about his medications (i.e. action, warnings, common side effects, when

to take the medications). This can be measured, by having the patient verbalize these things

about the medication.

Teaching Plan

It was very easy to identify a topic that he needed more education on as he verbalized it

quite a few times. I brought this up as a topic for the teaching plan and he seemed very agreeable

to his and was excited to get started. He is an avid reader and likes to write things down to

remember them, so I thought some sort of visual aid would be useful for him. We discussed that

we would make medication cards for each of his mediations and go over each medication and all

the necessary information together. He wanted to handwrite a copy for himself to keep, but also

asked me if I could type up some cards for later reference.

According to the Survey of Preferred Learning Method, the client was primarily a visual

learner. I thought the idea of medication cards would be helpful for him to see in the information

laid out in a visual way and he could reference them later if he needed. Also, having the

medication card he could rewrite the information as to better remember the information.
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Medication education is something that is very important among the older adult

population. Many older adults are on multiple medications and have issues with remembering all

their medication names and indications, as well as the importance of adhering to their medication

regimen, especially for chronic conditions. Yap, Thirumoorthy, and Kwan (2016) found that

patient education, or lack thereof, was a significant contributing factor to patient medication

adherence and that if patient’s do not understand the importance of their medications or what

they are used for they will be more likely to not take that medication. The FDA suggests that the

older adult communicate heavily with their provider and pharmacist regarding any and all

medications. The FDA emphasizes that older patients need to be educated on their medications in

order to learn and use their medications safely and to decrease the risks of allergic reactions,

adverse drug reactions, and drug interactions (U.S. Food & Drug Administration, 2013). Overall,

education allows patients to self-administer medications safely. Safe use of medication,

especially in older adults who often have multiple medications, can help to reduce preventable

adverse drug events in the older adult (Qato, Wilder, Schumm, Gillet, & Alexander 2016).

The teaching aids used were primarily medication cards that included the medication

name, dosage, picture, indication, action, warnings, common side effects, and dosing schedule.

All information was written in simple easy to understand language due to the patient’s minimal

education and lack of knowledge related to the medical field. The aids were also printed in large

font to accommodate for the patient’s poor eyesight. When going over the information with the

client, I took the time to speak slowly and make sure he fully understood what I was teaching

him. I also gave him plenty of time to ask any questions he may have had about the information

being taught to him.


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Overall, the teaching plan went well. By the end of last teaching session, the client was

able to clearly identify the indications for each of his medications. The desired outcomes were

measured by simply having the client verbalize the indication for each of his three medications.

In order to help the client follow-up on long-term goals would be to provide the medication cards

for future reference and then have his wife “test” him in one months’ time.

Evaluation

The nursing outcome was related to tertiary prevention. Overall, I think the education

was effective and he was able to learn a lot about his medications. He seemed to respond well to

the teaching and was enthusiastic about learning about his medications. He stated that he “felt

better about the medications I’m taking” and “can’t wait to tell my daughter all that I’ve learned

about my meds”. He also asked about different resources he could use if he wanted to look up

other medications or wanted to learn more information about his medicines. I showed him my

Nursing Drug Reference book and offered to show him some websites he could use, but he said

he does not use the computer. I’m not sure if anything different could have been done. Overall, I

think the teaching went really well. I think maybe I could have done the teaching all in one

session, instead of breaking it up into three different teaching sessions. Also, if there was a way

to make the teaching session more dynamic, I think that would have been helpful to the client.

I enjoyed the role of nurse-teacher and thought this was a valuable experience. The client

seemed really pleased and proud of himself with all that he learned, so I’m happy that I got to be

a part of that. Additionally, since he does have such limited education, it was challenging to

explain things in a simplistic way. I think he appreciated that I tried to make everything simple

and easy and gave him plenty of time to read everything over and ask questions. I learned the

importance of making sure you go over all of a patient’s medications with them. I was initially
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really shocked that he basically knew nothing about the medications that he was taking.

Thankfully, he didn’t take too many medicines, but I can’t imagine how an older adult who does

take a lot of medications must feel. I also enjoyed working with an older adult in a setting

outside of the hospital. It gave me time to really talk to him and try and find and tailor a way to

educate him on this very important topic.


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References

Healthy People 2020. (2018). Older adults. Retrieved from:

https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/older-adults

Qato, D.M., Wilder, J., Schumm, P., Gillet, V., & Alexander, G.C. (2016). Changes in

prescription and over-the-counter medication and dietary supplement use among older

adults in the United States, 2005 vs. 2011. The Journal of the American Medical

Association Internal Medicine, 176, 473-482. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2015.8581

United States Food & Drug Administration. (2013). Stop-Learn-Go Tips for talking with your

pharmacist to learn how to use medicines safely. Retrieved from:

https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/ucm163330.htm

Yap, A.F., Thirumoorthy, T., & Kwan, Y.H. (2016). Medication adherence in the elderly. Journal

of Clinical Gerontology and Geriatrics, 7, 64-67. doi:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcgg.2015.05.001

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