Nursing students are in a rather advantageous position to learn not only in the classroom but also in live practice. The teaching objectives incorporated in the course reflect the fact that case studies are integral to learning as they enable the development of proficiency in clinical judgment and it provides the students with a replica nursing practice setting. In this article, It will be my pleasure to share one of the newly created case studies for nursing student analysis. This scenario concerns a hypothesized patient with type 2 diabetes mellitus and focuses on the appropriate elements of a care plan, interventions, and assessment.
Case description
The patient has no known prior medical history of significant illnesses and is newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus; she is currently 58 years old. Typically, she stays with her family alone, and she works as a secretary for a certain office. In this case, we have, according to the records, Mrs. Meier weighed 91 kilograms and her height was 164 centimeters, and stated that she has an obesity-related BMI of 32.
Her diet is unsuitable and she cannot integrate physical activity into her daily schedule properly. She lacks any fixed schedule for the day; this has been a major issue in the sense that she cannot strictly follow a regime to take her foods and medications. Because she has unpredictable blood glucose levels; sometimes she gets dizzy, and more often, she feels exhausted. Mrs. Meier does not know what to do regarding her diagnosis and how to alter her lifestyle for the better.
The General Purpose of The Case Study
The key purpose of this case study is to facilitate the nursing students who need to construct a detailed nursing care plan for an existing type 2 diabetes mellitus patient. This encompasses assessment, such as taking history, performing nursing interventions, patient teaching, and assessing the results. The concerned nursing students should be taught how to help the patients modify their lifestyle as well as in managing the disease. It is for this reason that nursing students will need to understand and open themselves to the open-ended subjectivist principles introduced to clients in the nursing practice.
These plans are formulated following the record of a patient observation on the same patient in connection with the severe state of a patient and analysis of tests. Patient health history in its more detailed form means understanding particular risk factors and, thus, knowledge of specific patient processes of care. The process involves numerous steps and medication administration is one of the most crucial parts of it. This in turn means that conditions including overdoses or delayed use of the drugs must be well prevented for the positive effects of the drugs to be observed on the health of the clients.
Appropriate medication compliance is relevant here, that is to what extent the patients can adhere to the prescribed medication. First, there is a large amount of pressure on nurses to ever look at the patients to see whether or not they are observing the dosage, secondly, there is also the responsibility to educate the patients on how to take their medication properly. Another important aspect that affects decisions regarding care is the patient’s mental health or, as it is sometimes referred to, psychological status. Most of the discussed patients have been under stress, anxiety, or some other psychological condition that can hinder the healing process.
Nurses should embrace such problems and should be ready to use all the possible measures to promote mental health. It can therefore be argued that patient-centered care is progressive, distinctive, and complex and within this broad concept, adopts among others the patient’s physical, psychological, and emotional health needs. Yet another component of nursing practice involves showing the capacity of the worker to work in collaboration with other workers inclusive of doctors and other persons who will be performing the task of attending to the patients. Still, it is important to mention that it is possible to work hard and spend enough time to build care plans that presuppose the involvement of all the systems in question to receive brilliant results and enhance the recipients’ quality of life.
The idea of patient-centered care is that it is still broader and more dynamic as well as may mean achieving not only a patient’s needs or wants regarding his/her psychological or physical well-being but also others. Still, to meet the challenge of delivering proper care to these patients, nursing practice entails practicing with other professionals like medical officers, and other caregivers. However, it should be stated that the intention to deliver outstanding results and the increase in patient quality is possible only if all the proper care plans that require the activation of all the necessary systems are built on the sufficient time and effort invested into the suitable development.
Nursing history
The first task in nursing care plan formulation is an assessment of the client’s medical history. Thus, the nurse should elicit a comprehensive health history of Mrs. Meier’s health, past practices, and family health history. Important questions could be:
- When was diabetes diagnosed?
- Which signs of the disease were observed in Mrs. Meier?
- Is the patient known to have a previous or family history of any chronic diseases, particularly diabetes?
- To what extent can the current lifestyle, including diet and exercise routines appropriate to Mrs. Meier’s case be described?
- Has Mrs Meier already been on medication, and if so, what kind of medication is she on now?
- What is her emotional state of handling the diagnosis?
The following data is essential when developing the individualized care plan drawing upon Mrs. Meier’s situation and characteristics.
Emotional support and counseling: As a chronic disease, diabetes has an impact on the patient’s emotions, thus, the caregiver should try to comfort Mrs. Meier. This could be achieved by talking to her often and suggesting a support group, or by directing her to a psychologist.
Evaluation
Again, assessment or outcome assessment is a component of care because the impact of the interventions also needs to be assessed. In this case, the evaluation could include the following steps: In this case, the tallying could entail the following procedures:
Monitoring blood sugar levels: How the application relates to the use of technology can then be assessed by the nurse through comparing the Blood sugar diary kept and determining if there is an improvement in the blood sugar levels in the case of Mrs. Meier.
Weight checks: The nurse should ideally measure Mrs. Meier’s weight often to establish gains in weight loss.
Assessment of medication intake: The nurse should inquire from Mrs. Meier whether she is on any medication and if so, whether she is taking it appropriately. This could be done through talking or counting the medication boxes.
Feedback discussions: Further meetings with Ms. Meier are necessary to listen to her opinion regarding the measures taken and/or to introduce changes.
Long-term planning: In light of the evaluation outcome, further objectives need to be established and long-term being one of them for carrying on supporting Mrs. Meier. This could entail reporting frequent check-ups, making constant modifications to lifestyles, and encouraging people to have healthy lifestyles.
Conclusion
This case illustrates how practice requires nursing students to apply the knowledge that they have been learning in class. To be more precise, students can enhance the realistic experience of the clinical setting and strengthen their comprehension of patients’ requirements by solving functioning instances. The processes of care planning, implementing interventions, and evaluating the results are important aspects of the nursing practice that can be presented as case studies.
From this case, nursing students ought to realize that they do not only require knowledge of the physiological form of an illness but also patients’ psychosocial requirements. Such work means understanding the patient and her position, as well as having professional knowledge and experience in developing unique plans for each case.
The case under analysis can be a good example of a real-life situation that can be met during practice, thus, such cases help strengthen the intent and desire to become a competent and sensitive nurse. All in all, I hope this post is of some use to you and your readers. Should there be any other changes you would wish to be made, kindly let me know.
