Implications of Nursing Care Related to Environmental Changes.

Implications of Nursing Care Related to Environmental Changes.

Environmental health determinants are critical in the assessment, diagnosis, intervention, planning and evaluation components of nursing practice (McKibben, 2017). Environmental changes such as reduced government funding can greatly impact the overall health of the elderly. In this scenario, lack of adequate funds to purchase equipment such as bed alarms in hospitals greatly undermines the effort to curb the occurrence of falling among patients with dementia.

Reduced human resource in nursing homes and hospitals also greatly impacts health care quality and provision. The reduction in nurses can result from government policies or staffing problems (Benton et al., 2020). The overall problem that results from this is the reduced care offered to the elderly. Reduced care and attention greatly increase the risk of falling especially in the elderly with dementia, greatly hindering progress towards reducing occurrence of these falls.

            Nursing staff have a key role to play to try and deal with the issue of falls. They must first identify and document areas that require changes and push for the changes where possible to ensure that fall rates reduce. Implementation of other key guidelines laid out in order to curb the prevalence of falls among dementia patients should also be done by the nursing staff.

Conclusion.

In conclusion, dementia is a condition that greatly affects a vast number of the population negatively impacting their daily lives. The condition greatly predisposes to falls which consequently increase morbidity and mortality rates. This is mostly prevalent among the elderly, especially those aged sixty-five years and above. A poster aimed at nurses is one way of trying to reduce the occurrence of falls in elderly patients with dementia. The poster clearly outlines the statistics, clearly showing the magnitude of the issue, risk factors and necessary intervention methods that nurses can employ to reduce and fully curb the issue of falls.

References.

• Alves, V. C., Freitas, W. C. J. D., Ramos, J. S., Chagas, S. R. G., Azevedo, C., & Mata, L. R. F. D. (2017). Actions of the fall prevention protocol: mapping with the classification of nursing interventions. Revista latino-americana de enfermagem, 25.  https://doi.org/10.1590/1518-8345.2394.2986
• Benton, D. C., Watkins, M. J., Beasley, C. J., Ferguson, S. L., & Holloway, A. (2020). Evidence-based policy: nursing now and the importance of research synthesis. International Nursing Review, 67(1), 52–60. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12572
• Buckinx, F., Croisier, J.-L., Reginster, J.-Y., Lenaerts, C., Brunois, T., Rygaert, X., Petermans, J., & Bruyère, O. (2018). Prediction of the incidence of falls and deaths among elderly nursing home residents: The senior study. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 19(1), 18–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2017.06.014
• Davis, J. H., & Eastland, T. T. (2018). Electronic PICO Posters Engage Students in Nursing Management. Worldviews On Evidence-Based Nursing, 15(5), 409–410. https://doi.org/10.1111/wvn.12322