HPHE1IDH: Individual Determinants of Health

Enquiry 3: Working with older people

Purpose of the enquiry

The purpose of Enquiry 3 is to consider how core person-related factors can influence the ways in which people work and interact in health and human services settings. Taking a developmental perspective, this enquiry builds on Enquiry 1 and 2 by asking you to consider how additional person-related factors such as communication, pain, emotions and stress can influence interactions with an older person.  In Enquiry 3 you will examine how life events, as well as physical, mental and social health conditions can affect older persons. Specific person-related factors to be considered in this enquiry include the following:

• Learning principles
• Human development across the life span
• Memory
• Intelligence
• Psychological disorders
• Health-risks behaviours
• Motivation
• Behaviour change
• Social psychology
• Communication
• Personality
• Pain
• Emotions
• Stress

Background and rationale

Older people are major consumers of health care. It is therefore inevitable that you will be working with older people throughout your career. To be able to work effectively with older people requires an understanding of how their behaviour can be influenced by factors such as illness, communication, pain, personality, emotions and stress.  The primary aim of this enquiry is for you to be able to develop and apply foundation knowledge to work effectively with older people. 

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this enquiry, you should be able to achieve the following:

Team Leader’s role in PHE1IDH

As with Enquiry 1 and 2, co-leaders will lead the team each week. One team leader will take on the leadership role, while the other will act as support person or scribe for that week and take on tasks, such as recording key points and writing out the action plans for the following week.  Just as the role of co-leaders is rotated from week to week, so is the role within the leadership pair.  That is, the first time the pair leads the team, person A will actively lead the team and person B will act as support person, and the next time this pair leads the team, person B actively leads the team and person A acts as the support person.

The team leader will work to ensure that team members:

• are respectful of each other;
• display a genuine interest in what other team members have to say;
• take on their share of the workload in accordance with the team-generated agreement;
• are willing to compromise in order for the team to make progress; and
• brainstorm within the team.

The Enquiry

Synopsis

Imagine that you are a student completing your final placement. During your placement you are required to follow and reflect on an older adult through episodes of their care, i.e. acute and chronic. You choose to follow Rosa Calapari who originally presented to the emergency department of a major hospital in 2011 with both acute and chronic health issues, all of which are influencing her behaviour, communication and adherence to treatment.

You meet Rosa Calapari in 2018 when she is readmitted to hospital via the emergency department for tightness of chest and pain. At this time, you take over care of Rosa with your placement supervisor. As part of your hospital placement you must complete a written reflective task (see task and assessment, p. 6/7)

In order to prepare your assessment task successfully you will need access the following case-study resources:

Case specific resources

• Profile,
• Contextual information,
• Case narrative,
• Current clinical status,
• Clinical notes

Key people in the enquiry

Rosa: Is an 81-year old woman with a series of acute and chronic health conditions.

YOU: Are a student completing your final placement. Your task is to follow Rosa through her care (past and  

          present) and complete a reflective writing piece towards the completion of your degree.

Assessment: 800 word reflective writing piece 15%

Based on the case-specific resources (i.e., clinical notes) of Rosa Calapari, you need to reflect on your experience of what you anticipate to be most challenging when working with an older adult.

Reflective practice is seen as a means of improving clinical practice and consequently quality of care, through exploring and evaluating one’s understanding of a problem rather than simply trying to solve it (Leung, Pluye, Grad, & Weston, 2010).

Reflective practice is crucial in continuous development and re-assessment of skills when working in health care, or with people more generally. A reflective practitioner:

• Reflects on feedback and integrates changes into practice.

• Reflects on how own perceptions, attitudes and beliefs impact on practice.

• Identifies knowledge deficits and seeks clarification.

• Ensures procedures for safety and quality assurance are implemented.

It is essential when writing a reflective piece that you refer to the experience in the first person, therefore the use of ‘I’ is appropriate for this style of writing. As a reflective practitioner, it is important to not only think about how others may affect your behaviour (i.e., colleagues and clients) but also how your behaviour affect others.

                                                          Gibbs Reflective Practice (Palmer, Burns, & Bulman, 1994)

Reflective practice is seen as a means of improving clinical practice and consequently quality of care, through exploring and evaluating one’s understanding of a problem rather than simply trying to solve it (Leung, Pluye, Grad, & Weston, 2010).

Reflective practice is crucial in continuous development and re-assessment of skills when working in health care. A reflective practitioner:

• Reflects on feedback and integrates changes into practice.

• Reflects on how own perceptions, attitudes and beliefs impact on practice.

• Identifies knowledge deficits and seeks clarification.

• Ensures procedures for safety and quality assurance are implemented.

Your reflection should:

• Identify two health-related topics (choose from any of the PHE1IDH weekly topics) that you potentially feel may impact your interactions and/or behaviour when working with Rosa based on the case specific resources
• Use reflective writing to discuss why you anticipate the above health-related topics as potentially being most challenging to you
• Reflect upon how you might modify your perceptions and/or behaviours, in order to minimise potential challenges so you may work most effectively with an older adult for future practice in a health or human services setting

Due date: Week 11 _ 12:00 pm Friday 14^th September via Turnitin (Moode)

Format

Your reflective writing piece should adhere to the following:

•             APA 6 writing style

•             double-spacing

•             12 pt. Times New Roman font or similar

•             be written in the first person, e.g., ‘I feel… I think…’

Please note references are not required. For further information on reflective writing, please follow the link:

Resources

Case Specific Resources

Ensure you are logged into Moodle in order to open hyperlink – Rosa Calapari Scenario Case Study

Foundation reading (subsequent to Enquiry 2)

Buultjens, M. & Buultjens, P. (Compilers). (2017). Individual determinants of health and human behaviour (1^st ed.). Melbourne: Pearson Australia.

Communication – Chapter 10

Personality – Chapter 11

Pain – Chapter 12

Emotions – Chapter 13

Stress – Chapter 14

Please be reminded that you are not expected to read the textbook, cover to cover. The textbook is a resource to support your learning. If you don’t understand a theory or concept presented in the online materials, please turn to your textbook for a more detailed explanation. The textbook also provides another set of quiz questions at the conclusion of each chapter to help you identify areas requiring more study, and likewise, provides another platform to practice for your online exam.

Additional reading

The following are all available for short-term loan in the Latrobe university library

Adler, R.B. & Rodman, G. (2006). Understanding Human Communication (9th ed.). New York: Oxford

University Press (Chapter 4: Listening, & Chapter 5: Nonverbal Communication)

Hamilton, M., King, T. & Ritter, A. (2004). Drug Use in Australia: Preventing Harm (2nd ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press

Keefe, F.J., Abernethy, A.P., & Campbell, L.C. (2005). Psychological approaches to understanding and treating disease-related pain. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 601–630

Kring, A., Johnson, S., Davison, G., & Neale, J.  (2010). Abnormal Psychology. (11th ed.). New

York: Wiley (especially Chapter 5: Anxiety Disorders and Chapter 8: Mood Disorders)

Miller, W.R., & Rollnick, S. (2013) Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People for Change (3rd ed.). New

York: Guilford Press