Bessie is an 87-year-old client who has recently been discharged from an acute care hospital after experiencing a cerebrovascular accident. Due to her compliling health issues she has been refered to home health to get assistance she needs to continue to live independently as long as possible. Bessie has a friend next door that is willing to help, but does not have any family nearby and does not have any discretionary income, because of these limitations she will need her home health nurse, Laura, to advocate for her to come up with a plan of action. The role of adcvocate is increasingly important because of clients changing needs and demands. Elderly clients need more help than ever with finding resoursed and applying for them with our increasingly …show more content…
She will need to make sure that there are not any rugs or cords in the floor, remind Bessie to always have shoes on, and make sure she has any assistive ambulating devices she needs. Laura may also inlist a local church in provide and install shower and toilet grab bars, and possibly providing life alert necklace incase Bessie falls and can not get to the phone to call for help.
The Medication Due to Bessies failing eyesight Laura will need to provied a medicine bottle magnifier to assist Bessie with reading labels. She will also need to fill a weekly pill organizer for Bessie and talk to her physician about chaning her insuline to a prefilled syrange so she can feel and hear the clicks to know how many units she is giving herself. She may also need glucomonitor with large numbers and that reads the results to you.
The Big Move When laura is not able to live independently anymore she will need somewhere to go that can assist her with all of her needs. Bessie has family, just not in her area, if they are willing to allow her to move in when them this would be her best option. If bessie does not want to leave the area or if her family is not willing to help she has a couple options avaliable to her. One her choices is a nursing home, but they can be quite expensive averaging $5,000 per month. Another option would be Assisted