Comprehensive assessment of the state of health of a certain older adult is a process that demands specific procedures and is a part of various nursing programs. In this paper, we are going to discuss the ways in which the interview for the further comprehensive assessment can be prepared and what other phases of the preparations are, as well as examine the role of GNP/APNP in the functional assessment of older adults.
Aged people are a specific social group communication with which presupposes special skills and knowledge, especially when the matter is the preparatory interview aimed at health record making for the purposes of a further comprehensive assessment of the older adult.
Thus, to carry out a successful interview with an 85-year-old, I, as a practitioner, would follow the principles of politeness, political correctness, respect to the age and experience of the patient, and of course need to gather the most relevant data about the health conditions of the patient interviewed. This is necessary so that the feelings and dignity of the patient would not be discriminated against, and the gathering of data would not become an offensive process to the patient but would allow at the same time to get as much useful information as possible (Bickley, 2007).
The interview will include the following topics according to which questions will be asked: greeting in order to establish the contact and develop a fruitful interview, beginning with the general information about the patient’s background, the state in which health is felt by the patient him/herself, major complaints of the patient, the period of duration of symptoms, the history of the disease as viewed by the patient him/herself. The topics of the family and social history of the patient will be also of special importance for the interview.
Needless to say, that some questions in the interview will be treated as offensive or inconvenient to answer by the aged patient and this will result in a number of barriers in the talk as well as comments about the absence of necessity of the interview. So that to overcome the barriers, I would include the mentioning of the importance of the issue and its treatment for the patient and his/her family, as well as the statement that the practitioner does not have a personal interest in his/her private affairs but is here only to help. Only the combination of these questions and statements will allow me to conduct a fruitful interview for the further comprehensive assessment of the patient (Bickley, 2007).
Moreover, the role of productive GNP/APNP – patient partnership should not be underestimated. The concept of this partnership itself is the combination of efforts of doctors, nurses, and patients aimed at conducting the most successful comprehensive research.
It presupposes the interaction of patients who inform GNPs or APNPs about their problems and symptoms and GNPs themselves who concentrate the information, complete health records, and carry out a successful comprehensive assessment of the patient. The role of GNP/APNP in this process is great because they not only analyze the acquired information but also influence the patients making them cooperate and contribute to the assessment success. They also conduct a functional assessment of the older adults which is an integral part of the comprehensive assessment and studies the practical abilities of patients and the functional state of their health (Bickley, 2007).
To conclude, the success of the comprehensive assessment of older adult patients depends on the well-prepared interview, gathering and analyzing data, completing health record, and functional assessment carried out by GNP/APNP whose role in the assessment is great, as well as the role of their productive partnership with patients.
Works Cited
Bickley, L. (2007). Bates guide to physical examination and history taking. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 9th edition.