Task
Mrs. Smith Case Study for Palliative Care Assessment
A-Plus Writing Help For University Students
Get expert assistance in any academic field. All courses and programs covered.
Get Help Now!Meet Mrs. Smith
Mrs. Smith, a 71-year-old female, was admitted to the hospital with an exacerbation of her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and pneumonia. Her symptoms were cough, fever, headache, and shortness of breath. Mrs. Smith also had a history of diabetes and was in the hospital with pneumonia three weeks prior.
Over the next few days, Mrs. Smith’s condition worsened. She was transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU) when the infection spread to other organs of her body, inducing shock. Her care was transferred to the on-call resident who was unfamiliar with her case. She continued to complain of headache and shortness of breath, and the nurses noted that she was increasingly irritable and hardly slept. During the night, Mrs. Smith suffered an acute nosebleed and aspirated blood into her lungs, causing respiratory distress, and she was intubated. Once an independent woman, Mrs. Smith now lay in the ICU with a spreading infection and a ventilator pumping air into her lungs to keep her alive.
Mrs. Smith’s son and daughter-in-law came to visit every afternoon. They noticed a significant change in Mrs. Smith’s health status and spirit but remained hopeful that she was “a fighter”, and would turn around. By writing on a pad of paper, Mrs. Smith communicated to her son that she was very uncomfortable and particularly worried about missing Sunday Mass. As Mrs. Smith’s condition continued to decline, she became confused and disoriented. She did not have an advance health care directive, and when the doctor initiated a discussion about her code status, the family was uncertain of what to do because they had never discussed It before. The family did not understand why her condition was not improving and became increasingly worried about the cost of the hospital stay.
The case of Mrs. Smith presents several concerns:
- First, Mrs. Smith failed to receive adequate pain and symptom management-she continued to be short of breath while her headache and insomnia were completely overlooked.
- Second, inadequate communication between the patient, family, and clinical team meant that goals of care were not discussed while Mrs. Smith was still able to communicate, and the family never realized the severity of Mrs. Smith’s condition.
- This led to uncoordinated care that compromised Mrs. Smith’s quality of life and her autonomy when decisions needed to be made.
- Mrs. Smith received suboptimal care that failed to meet her physical, psychosocial, and spiritual needs.
Welcome to our Online Essay Writing Agency. Securing higher grades costing your pocket? Order your assignment online at the lowest price now! Our online essay writers are able to provide high-quality assignment help within your deadline. With our homework writing company, you can order essays, term papers, research papers, capstone projects, movie review, presentation, annotated bibliography, reaction paper, research proposal, discussion, or another assignment without having to worry about its originality – we offer 100% original content written completely from scratch
We write papers within your selected deadline. Just share the instructions
