Falls prevention
Falls in a clinical setting is a paramount problem that results in serious injuries and prolonged hospital stay among older adults, which is why scholars and clinicians allocate efforts to addressing it. The instruction will consider using verbal pathway and add some illustrative material adjusted to the needs of older patients. The purpose of this instruction is to increase the adherence to and understanding of falls prevention in patients.
Critical Elements of the Instruction Program
The primary factor that should influence the decision on using one or another instruction is the existence of clinical and scientific evidence that supports it. The success of the method and its ability to persuade the patient in the effectiveness of the proposed action plan are the key elements that a falls prevention instruction should have. In addition to that, the chosen method should promote adherence to it which often depends on the persuasiveness of the doctor’s arguments. Therefore, it is paramount to choose appropriate words and phrases to instruct the patient on his or her falls prevention strategy.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2017) suggests that it is essential to be mindful and respectful of the old age habits such as negation of their physical health deterioration and attribution of their falls to bad luck. Patient education on falls prevention mostly implies verbal and non-verbal communication, the combined use of which is considered more effective (Bambaeeroo & Shokrpour, 2017).
Verbal communication will still be used as a major method, like brochures, pamphlets and flyers are only moderately effective as a standalone intervention. Nonetheless, written forms of communication will be employed as a supplement (Bastable, 2014). CDC (2017) suggests using bigger fonts as many older people have eyesight issues. Additionally, both oral speech and written materials ought to be written in plain English so that the messages are clear and insightful.
The instruction should comprehensively cover prevention, mitigation, and rehabilitation strategies. Avoiding injuries needs to become the key topic as no falls is the desired outcome which can be relatively easily achieved if the patient understands, accepts, and adheres to instructions. The efforts should detail the behaviors that, given the patient’s condition, could help him or her avoid falling. Since full compliance and prevention is a rare occasion, a patient also needs to be instructed on mitigation and rehabilitation (Iuga & McGuire, 2014). Mitigation might be addressed if a patient is instructed to document and report fall incidents as the injury may not seem significant to the patient but could be worth investigating for a nurse or doctor.
Rehabilitation needs to be discussed, so the patient better understands the consequences of non-adherence and has the data about the treatment procedures. The information about each topic should be presented in the form of a short presentation for all patients in risk of falling, where they are welcome to ask questions. The presentation needs to be audio-visual so that both information channels are used. A notebook and projector might be useful to conduct such a lecture on falls. A lecturer should use examples to illustrate the consequences of non-adherence and use other methods of persuasion to ensure favorable prevention rates are achieved.
Conclusion
The program will focus on prevention as the key element of eliminating falls. The means of communication will be adjusted to the needs of elder patients through written and oral text improvements. The main topics will be safety, adherence, rehabilitation, and mitigation.
Child safety
Child safety in rural areas is an especially vital topic for instruction as community traditions may sometimes contradict healthy practices. The program to tackle this issue will be comprehensive and address the leading causes of injury, prevention strategies, and damage mitigation. The following program will be aimed at mitigation, prevention and safety of children in rural areas.
The Program and Topics to Cover
The first topic to discuss within the program is major causes of injuries and deaths. As such, mothers may be informed of possible sources and ways to avoid traumas. As for the sources, they might include livestock, machinery, pesticides, misapplication of tools, and other potentially traumatic items that are plentiful in farms and ranches. Mothers should be reminded that their children might want to use some of these objects not appropriate for them due to their explorative nature.
Thus, such objects should be exemplified, for instance, by those enumerated above and instructed to keep those items out of reach or restrict access to areas where dangerous equipment and kettle are located. Instead, mothers need to be advised to create safe places for children to pass the time where their health will not be endangered.
The next topic to shed light upon is the prevention of injuries. Each rural community and family may live in different conditions, so the sources of hazard might differ. However, the parents should be advised on elaborating a list of items or places, with which or where a child might hurt himself or herself. Those items and places will, therefore, need to be restricted for access. In practice, many incidents happen to children who visit the farm for the first time, which requires owners to take extra precautions and instruct the visitors on possible dangers (Children’s Bureau, 2018).
Mitigation of damage also needs to be discussed in case an injury does happen. Mothers should be instructed on providing first aid and having first aid kits ready and available at all times. In some rural areas where professional medical attention is scarce, the lectures on first aid need to be given priority. Parents might also be advised to teach their children behaviors to follow in critical situations. Occasionally, when parents are not around, older brothers or sisters should be aware of safety protocols.
Means of Program Dissemination
As the usage of mobile technologies and the Internet has increased, messengers, social networks and websites can become instrumental for providing necessary information within the program. In social media, mothers could be given a detailed guide on how to prevent their children from danger. Through What’s App chats, parents could be informed of certain resources such as the Progressive Agriculture Foundation (2018) website that has plenty of information on hazards and prevention strategies for rural communities. Health care providers could send the information through emailing some of the participants with requests of spreading the information further and use other dissemination activities.
Other means of web-based program delivery may include video-conferencing with representatives of the community who will disseminate the information about hazards, injury prevention, and mitigation strategies to other families and mothers. Home safety improvement initiatives can also be presented in a form a self-made video uploaded to YouTube. Regardless of the channel, it is critical that the program outreach is maximal and utilization of several means of communication could be the best option to address as many mothers and children as possible.
Conclusion
All in all, the program will discuss all the vital topics including prevention, causes, and mitigation. It addresses main concerns of mothers and should lead to increased safety of children in rural areas. The employment of internet-based communication should help disseminate information about the program.
References
Bambaeeroo, F., & Shokrpour, N. (2017). The impact of the teachers’ non-verbal communication on success in teaching. Journal of Advances in Medical Education & Professionalism, 5(2), 51–59.
Bastable, S. B. (2014). Nurse as educator: Principles of teaching and learning for nursing practice (2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2017). Talking about fall prevention with your patients. Web.
Children’s Bureau. (2018). Rural child welfare practice. Web.
Iuga, A. O., & McGuire, M. J. (2014). Adherence and health care costs. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 7, 35-44.
Progressive Agriculture Foundation. (2018). Learn to stay safe and healthy. Web.