The Elderly in the Community

As one ages, the body accumulates a myriad of multidimensional changes in the realms of physical, biological, psychological, and social alterations. These changes can manifest from a deficiency in one area or an abundance in another. According to the student nurse, these changes can be functional, potentially dysfunctional, or dysfunctional based on Gordon’s Functional Health Patterns. The student nurse conducts a similar interview and assessment process with each patient to gather subjective and objective data related to the health and wellness of the individual. The function of the student nurse’s interview process using Gordon’s Functional Health Patterns reflects the purpose of the interviewing an elderly individual in the community. The purpose of this paper is to emulate the nursing process by ranking the priority of care for the identified health problems using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

The client E.K. was interviewed using Gordon’s Functional Health Patterns to assess her physical, biological, psychological, and social health and wellness. Following the interview of E.K., the information was organized into a concept map and prioritized for care based on nursing diagnoses which were assigned for functional, potentially dysfunction and dysfunctional health patterns. E.K. is an eighty-three year old Caucasian female who has six children. She is entirely Irish and practices Catholicism. She is a widow who lives alone in a condo style house which is separated, but next to her daughter’s home. She retired at age fifty-five from her life long career as an accountant. E.K. has a history of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, two falls resulting in injury within the past year, hip replacement surgery on both hi...

... middle of paper ...

... evaluating and ranking the nursing diagnoses, it is comprehensible that the student nurse’s priority care for E.K. would focus on the activity-exercise health pattern. The subsequent priorities are the other dysfunctional health patterns including the health perception and health management health pattern and the elimination health pattern. The subsequent priorities are the potentially dysfunctional health patterns which include the nutrition-metabolic health pattern and the cognitive-perceptual health pattern. The health pattern which is not prioritized for care is the functional health pattern of sleep/rest. The process of ranking the health patterns is a systematic way to use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Therefore the student nurse is able to determine which health pattern is the priority for care and which health patterns are subsequent priorities of care.