Case Study on Skin Integrity, Wound Healing, Medication Side Effects, Constipation, and Osteoporosis in Older Adults

Running head: CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY
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CASE STUDY1
Answer 1)
A) This case scenario revolves around the patient, named Joyce, 77 years old female, who
was suffering from fracture and falls that had resulted in the breakdown and injury of skin.
Due to her injury, she was not bale to perform any physical activity in the house to continue
her daily activity of life. According to Campbell, Coyer, & Osborne (2016), skin integrity is
largely affected by an individual’s age, as ageing reduces the total time period required by the
patient to heal the wound. An individual skin is made up of three different layers, where
dermis and epidermis is responsible for resisting and protecting the skin form damage. In
case of older adults, the dermis and epidermis layer of skin reduce their strength and hence
fail to adequately protect the skin from damage. According to Cheung (2017), the number of
Langerhans and keratinocytes cells reduces in number associated with reduction in rate of
epithelisation among the older adults that therefore hampers the skin integrity because these
cells are majorly responsible for maintaining or preserving the skin integrity of an individual.
Hence, the skin of older adults are more prone and susceptible for infection or damage
associated with reduced process of skin healing. In this case study, Joyce was also an older
adult that made her skin loose and she lost her skin integrity with prolonged wound healing
period.

CASE STUDY2
Source: Cheung (2017)
B) Wound healing is defined as the complex process that involves repairing of the skin and
the tissues present beneath the skin to repair themselves as quickly as possible after any type
of injury. According to Keyes et al. (2016), the older adults have minimum possibility of
wound healing after their skin integrity. The researcher had also documented the age-
associated difference that arise during the wound healing procedure among the older adults.
The complete wound healing procedure is classified into four different sections namely
haemostasis phase, inflammatory phase, proliferative phase and maturation phase. The slow
wound healing process is directly related to the increasing age and affect the cellular and
tissue response that leads to impaired signalling procedure under the activity of cytokine
transduction, unimpeded inflammation, protein imbalance associated with healing and
adverse response towards wound healing (Norman et al., 2016). The inflammatory response
in case of older adults are also delayed that does not permit the white blood cells and required
nutrients to reach the injured cells and repair them, therefore leading to delayed wound
healing. Due to the complete delayed process, the final stage of wound healing takes
approximately 1 month to heal the wound of an older adult, hence, in case of Joyce, she will
take more time to heal the wound because of her age Gould et al. (2015).