Ms. N is a 74-year-old female patient, who presents to the nursing home for admission by her daughter with complaints of being confused, falling and urinary incontinence over the past three weeks. Her daughter, Doris sates she is unable to care for her mother at home anymore and wants to permanently admit her. Ms. N presents with several problems that can be placed on her preliminary list. First problem is Ms. N’s recent lifestyle change from being completely independent and driving herself to her part-time job at the local library, to being completely dependent, all within one month. This alerts that some illness is affecting Ms. N, which has caused her to be affected by these changes in such a short period of time. Moreover, Ms. N demonstrates acute confusion, as she keeps saying she wants to go home and doesn’t want to be here. Also, Ms. N is paranoid and refers her daughter as a lady that is trying to kill her, which is another problem that should be added to her preliminary list. Doris reports her mother suffering from urinary incontinence and repeatedly trying to make it to the bathroom but falling, as this may be related to her acute confusion, possible dementia, …show more content…
N presents with include urinary frequency from a source of infection and a decrease in fluid intake is what’s causing Ms. N to feel confused. Urinary infection is another atypical presentation in elderly patient’s that may lead to urinary incontinence, acute confusion, causing Ms. N to experience increased risk for falling. Classic signs and symptoms in elderly patients that will cause them to have cognitive changes and include a loss of appetite. Moreover, Ms. N had normal lab values for SMA-24 and CBC, which suggested no infection and the fact that she was afebrile. Additional atypical symptoms that Ms. N has in this case study is sepsis without the abnormal leukocytosis, fever and a change in functional status (Flaherty & Zwicker,