Nursing Care for Older Adult Patients with End-Stage Renal Disease with Complications in Community : 2 Cases Studies

Abstract

      The purpose of this study was to compare the nursing cares of two older adult patients with End-Stage Renal Disease with complications approached by Gordon”s functional health assessment and 5 steps of the community health nursing process: health assessment, nursing diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. The study results revealed that in the first case, the problems referred from hospital were volume overload, anemia, and hypoglycemia caused by improper eating behavior and uncontrol amount of fluid intake and output. The main goal of care was to adjust the patient's health behavior. As for the second patient, the referred problems were volume overload, anemia, hypoglycemia, hypokalemia, and hypoalbuminemia caused by physical deterioration and lack of caregivers resulting in improper diet and inability to control fluid intake and output. The main goal of care was to adjust health behaviors and emphasize the participation of relatives. From continuous home visits, both patients showed improvement.

      Therefore, nursing care of patients in the community needs to integrate the community health process with continuous home visits and focus on changing health behaviors along with encouraging family participation to maximize benefit to the patients.