Assessment 1: Case Study- Part 1

To provide the quality care and effective treatment to the patient, Wilf who suffers from the critical illness with a lot of health problems like hypertension, osteoarthritis, chronic heart failure, mild COPD and Mild Cognitive Impairment, it is important for healthcare professionals to communicate the family members to prepare a plan of care with different objectives and priorities.

Summative Assessment 1
Running Head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Assessment 1: Case Study- Part 1

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Introduction
To provide the quality care and effective treatment to the patient, Wilf who suffers from
the critical illness with a lot of health problems like hypertension, osteoarthritis, chronic heart
failure, mild COPD and Mild Cognitive Impairment, it is important for healthcare professionals
to communicate the family members to prepare a plan of care with different objectives and
priorities. At present, Wilf needs the palliative care in the form of person-cantered care services
for getting the professional medical guidance from the physician along with the effective care
from the care provider to get the right treatment for his wellness and quality life. This assessment
discusses the short-term and long-term goals as well as the specific goals from the perspective of
Wilf’s health safety and wellness through the Medical supervision and involvement of the family
in the care support of Wilf (Department of Health and Ageing, 2011).

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Goals:
Short-term Goals:
The first goal of the care plan will be to help Wilf to have access to best quality of the
life. In order to achieve this goal, it is important for the nurse or other health care professional to
provide appropriate support for Wilf to stay pain free. From the assessment of the medical
history of Wilf, it has been identified that Wilf faces health problems like chronic heart disease,
Mild COPD, Mild Cognitive impairment, osteoarthritis, and hypertension. Due to the problem of
osteoarthritis, the patients suffer from pain in joints, which should be treated by healthcare
practitioner. This kind of pain can damage the quality of life and behavior of patient. Second
goal of this care plan is to provide care through the medical intervention by the palliative care
team in order to ensure relief from pain, stress and symptoms of the complex health problems in
Wilf (Stephens, 2018). Educating and consultation can help to enable Wilf to understand that his
wife is no longer able to support him. The nurse or other appointed healthcare staff should
provide friendly guidance to Wilf to comply with the prescriptions mentioned on different
medicines. The health professional should also communicate the consequences that may occur, if
he fails to timely take the medicines.
The third short term goal of care plan for Wilf should be to conduct health check-ups and
tests of Wilf like blood pressure, heart rate, sugar level etc (Wirtz, Cribb, & Barber, 2006). This
will help to prevent consequences arising from hypertension, heart disease and unexpected death
with the patient.
Long-Term Goals:
The first goal of care plan is that Wilf should be provided psychological treatment (Stone,
2018). It is observed from the analysis of given case that Wilf gets angry and frustrated with

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Mavis frequently. On basis of these symptoms, it can be said that Wilf is exposed to risk of
cognitive impairment disorder. These are also the symptoms of anxiety in a person. The
behaviours like anger and frustration should be handled by nursing staff as well as family
members through use of different tactics like positive influence on Wilf to stay happy and
spending time with family members, reading some books and watching interesting shows (Care
Search, 2018). Wilf is also exposed to issue of forgetful. In this context, the memory exercises
can be suggested to Wilf.
The second goal of care plan will be to ensure the care setting for Wilf to live in a healthy
and supportive environment for feeling pain-free in the life. This can be done through reducing
the boredom, anxiety, and distress in his life. The palliative care intervention can be adopted for
Wilf for encouraging involvement in different activities that will reduce his boredom, stress, and
pain. Example of these activities includes walking, light exercise, playing games with
grandchildren, watching T.V. etc. But involvement of Wilf in these activities will depend fully
on the free choice of Wilf (The Australian Government: the Australian Institute of Health and
Welfare, 2017).
What to Consider for Support to Mavis:
It is very important to support Mavis so that she could stay fit and able to care for herself
and her husband. Firstly, Mavis is in the need to get assistance from the home-based palliative
care support for better care of Wilf. Mavis should not raise her temper and always work with the
cool mind so that she could create a friendly environment for Wilf. Mavis should avoid the
heavy works or maintenance of home. This will reduce the physical and mental burden on
Mavis.

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Mavis can also get the psychological support from the psychologist in order to stay away
from the stress or tension (Dow, et al., 2010). The psychologist can also advise her to create a
positive and happy environment for better healthcare for her husband. Mavis can encourage her
husband to feel good and live life positively without fear of increasing health concerns and
stress. Mavis should spent time on exercise and meditation for getting rid of hypertension. Mavis
should also focus on taking balanced food diet by restricting sugar and high carbohydrate
(Carlozzi, et al., 2017).
Mavis is very tense-full and troubled because of increasing health safety concerns of Wilf
and now she has not been able to provide longer care support for her husband. Mavis should be
professionally advised by the physician to adopt a slow paced approach while performing any
work. Mavis should keep careful attention while moving, working, or walking in her daily
routines. She should not show any haste because it can result in serious injury to her body. She
also should be attentive while serving and caring her husband. This will allow her to avoid
situations of frustration/ anger with Wilf (Cortopassi, Gurung, & Pinto-Plata, 2017).
Mavis really wants to continue caring for her husband because she has been the principal
carer for him. Wilf also expects the care from his wife’s hands but also understands that her wife
is currently not mentally fit (facing hypertension) to care for him and maybe an extra burden on
her shoulders while she has been facing the health problems in her aging stage. Mavis can get
support from an affordable home-based person-centred care staff to help her husband (Cherlin, et
al., 2005).
Conversations between Family and Healthcare Providers:
It is important for Wilf and Mavis to keep conversation with their own children, Jenny
and David for getting their suggestions regarding the health care concerns. David and Jenny can

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suggest them for getting the advance care planning with the help of palliative care support. The
palliative care staff will assist them in taking the decision for the best care support to Wilf
through the residential aged care setting or person-centred care. The palliative care can provide
the information on the advance care planning for supporting the life of Wilf with the quality care.
The advance care planning will keep him away from psychological problems like stress/tension
by reducing anger, anxiety, and aggressive behaviour. The advance care planning will provide
the directions for determining that what future health plan will be best and how to implement the
plan (Hudson, et al., 2012). The advance care directive will contain a letter or statement of
inclusion of the doctor for the preparing the outlines of Wilf’ medical history, his future health
plan, life goals, prescriptions/ advice, medical intervention, and the external care support
requirements to Wilf for his long-term wellness and safety.
The conversation could also be held with the children regarding the health improvement
of Wilf through the setting of the external care support. There are several government-owned
aged-cares or charity-based community cares in Australia that provide the subsidized quality care
services for meeting healthcare needs of care recipients. The aged-care service facilities provide
the family environment, medical help, and care support from the care service staffs to provide
the lifetime healthcare support to assist him to lead a better life with the health improvement
through the aged-care setting (Mitchell, 2011).
For this particular case, the conversation should consider the important issues like
reduced workload for Mavis. Mavis should follow the physician’s advice to slow down in order
to prevent the worsening of her health. David is the elder son of Wilf and Mavis, so he is more
appropriate and responsible to take this matter seriously and implement an action plan by
consulting or getting information from the palliative care staff. David can request his mother

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(mum) not to engage in more physical activities or domestic workloads. Rather she should spend
the most times of her life with a great deal of comfort and happiness and in the care of Wilf
(Palliative Care Australia, 2016). He can also make friendly request his father to control anger,
frustration and boredom and to spend time in activities of interest.
It will be important to consider the palliative care like person-cantered care for
supporting older life of Wilf for ensuring access to better quality of life. The palliative care is a
multidisciplinary approach. The palliative care could be used to get the care support and the
additional support at time of old age. But, the main goal of palliative care should be providing
the life care support to Wilf so that the mental problems could also be reduced along with the
physical health problems (Eagar, et al., 2010).
Managing Wilf’s safety and Interests in Decision Making:
The principle of respect is related to allowing and enabling the patients to make their self-
decisions freely regarding healthcare requirements or medical interventions. But, regarding
managing the best interests of the patient safety, the role of the palliative care becomes vital.
Application of palliative care can help to provide the healthcare support to Wilf. It is a type of
active and supportive care that seeks to maximize the comfort level and quality of life to the
person in need. The palliative care support could be provided through the residential aged care
facilities or government aged-care centres. It can help to manage the best interests of the Wilf by
providing the healthcare support of his own wishes. The application of palliative care will
provide better healthcare guidance to assist Wilf for managing his daily life for caring himself by
getting consistent information, managing resources, and medications.
Regarding managing the best interests, the palliative care will respect and value the rights
and autonomy of Wilf for taking decision for self treatment. But it would be better if the decision

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is finally made after getting the professional medical advice and consultation with the family
members. The palliative care should inform Wilf and his family before any medical intervention
or treatment is given to him. The carer requires keeping transparency and accountability in the
treatment process by ensuring the right kinds of medication after diagnosing and checking the
health reports of Wilf (Entwistle, Carter, Cribb, & McCaffery, 2010).
Wilf has a particular interest in smoking cigarettes, gardening and playing lawn bawls
with friends. The palliative care can provide an expert professional advice to Wilf to quit
smoking, only if Wilf wants to quit. Otherwise, there should not be any pressure on freedom of
Wilf to enjoy its smoking activity (Naik, Dyer, Kunik, & McCullough, 2009). Family members
should be advised to not interfere in freedom and personal choice of interest activities of Wilf
like even the smoking, if he is getting rid of tension/ anxiety with this activity. The palliative
care can advise Wilf and his family members to follow the safety assessment to keep him away
from taking more tension, boredom, and irritation, reducing anger and anxiety. It can help to
increase involvement of him more in physical exercising, yoga, and social activities, like
watching TV or spending time with grandchildren to get rid of the tension.
The carer should provide effective care with suitable medications on time as per the
medical chart prescribed by the physician. The palliative care can guide the carer to follow the
safety assessment by arranging fire retardant blanket for the safety of Wilf against fire, clean
wearing clothes, and the first-aid treatment in the emergencies (McPake & Mahal, 2017). The
person-centred care should be provided to Wilf based on better patient-provider relationship and
medical ethics.

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Conclusion
Overall, it is concluded that Wilf requires the care support and professional guidance
under the palliative care supervision. The palliative care could be provided through the aged-care
setting of the government healthcare centres. The combined efforts from the family members and
medical intervention team could be effective in providing better care support in assisting Wilf to
live a better life by ensuring his health wellness and safety. Both short-term and long-term goals
can provide the frameworks for the advance care planning and standards for the quality of life by
managing the symptoms in his struggled life.

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References
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Carlozzi, N., Sherman, C., Angers, K., Belanger, M., Austin, A., & Ryan, K. (2017).‘Caring for
an individual with mild cognitive impairment: a qualitative perspective of health-related
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education-and-training-in-older-age-depression-and-anxiety.pdf.

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Eagar, K., Watters, P., Currow, D.C., Aoun, S.M., & Yates, P. (2010). ‘The Australian Palliative
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1291327/.

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