Assessment of Patients across the Age-Continuum

This paper will demonstrate your ability to describe the assessment of patients in two different age categories for the one selected topic. You are writing about nurse’s assessment for healthy individuals not a population or illness/disease (not diabetes/diabetic or dementia).

You will:

1.find literature to serve as evidence that supports the nurse’s assessment,
2.explain the significance of the specific assessment for health of the individuals
3.identify what areas to be assessed and rationale for these areas,
4.provide support of your recommendation regarding the assessment frequency, techniques, and other associate interventions from the literature, and
5.discuss any identified gaps that need to be considered when completing the assessment that are not discussed in the evidence literature.
In this paper you will compare/contrast the assessment between the two the selected age categories that you chose. Additionally, you will state the expected positive findings from the assessment and describe what the nurse does if negative data are assessed.

Implications for nursing practice will be discussed.

The evidence literature is from articles in the professional journals not textbooks within the past 5-8 years. Guidelines developed by national organizations that support the assessments recommendations are included if available.

The four age categories are: infant/children, adolescents, young/middle age adult, and older/elderly. Select two categories. You may select one age category that you have experience with as being a nurse or you may chose two different age categories. We recommend not selecting young/middle age adult and elderly as the assessment criteria are probably very similar and thus it will be more difficult to compare and contrast the assessment.

The four topics are: elimination, skin/hair/nails, musculoskeletal system, or self- esteem. Select one topic area.