Autonomy In Nursing

uring all phases of life safety needs are a primary concern. As we age, we develop autonomy. However, older adults can suffer from degenerative changes of aging making them lose that sense of autonomy. For example, I had a patient that seemed to have an independence about him that he did not want taken away. He told me a story that during WWII when everyone went to serve in the war he stayed behind to man a bakery. He was very prideful in that he never asked for help taking care of the bakery. He was attending high school and opening, working lunch, closing, and cleaning the shop all by himself. Independence had always been a way of life for him. When doing health promotion teachings with this client I really had to stress the importance of

This is the psychosocial age of generativity vs stagnation. In this stage they want to be purposeful. They can feel like at this point in their lives they should be able to contribute to their care. I wanted to keep this in mind and ensure to keep my patient involved in her care. I helped her to identify interventions she could practice on her own that played into her plan of care. I modified my teaching methods to her developmental level by using terminology that people other than nurses would use. By doing this, I was able to individualize my communication to the patient's developmental level and modify my teaching method to her specific age. According to Malone, Liu, Vaillant, Rentz, and Waldinger, (2015), "Developmental theory suggests that generativity may have particular significance for successful aging as it draws on a range of cognitive and emotional capacities." (P. 4) When working with any age you must alter nursing cares to that patient's specific developmental level. In clinical, we saw various ages and developmental levels at clinical. Our youngest patient was a 2-year old girl. We tried to promote her autonomy my giving her opportunities to make choices any time she