Health Assessment in Healthcare

This article discusses the importance of health assessment in healthcare, focusing on the interview process with older adults. It also highlights the barriers faced by older adults in accessing healthcare.

Running head: HEALTHCARE
HEALTHCARE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Introduction
Health assessment is an important aspect in healthcare which includes physical
inspections or various other procedures to detect the illness in a very early stage, when the
person starts feeling ill or notices symptoms. Health assessment of in older adults can be
performed on variety of levels, that range from minor screenings to complex disease
evaluations. In order to perform the assessment, the healthcare providers and nurses needs to
practice skills and knowledge about the process (Forbes & Watt, 2015). They must know the
appropriate process of using diagnostic tools and apparatus. One of the major part of health
assessment is interview with the effected person. The assignment will focus on the Critical
Reasoning Cycle to conduct the interview with older person regarding the health issues
witnessed.
Clinical Reasoning Cycle 1:
The interview set was manual, based on the nursing and healthcare knowledge and
practice a questionnaire was prepared. The interview was conducted between a healthcare
professional and an older person using prepared a semi-structured interview grounded on the
primary ideas. environment and the surrounding where the health assessment interview will
be performed was selected very carefully. The questions focused on the health issues faced
by the older person and what all facilitation issues the person has been facing because of the
age group and it was an open-end interview. There was minimal amount of distraction; no
noise from things such as television, music player, radio and also the public address
arrangements were not loud as it may distract the elderly person or effect the ability of the
person to distinguish between words and comprehend the questions asked. (Giger, 2016). The
questions and practice included the case history, family medical history, present

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medication, palpation, inspection, percussion and auscultation (Stanyon et al., 2016).
Also it used recorders to record the conversation and the data were written down in as a text.
Clinical Reasoning Cycle 2:
Before collecting the data and information of the health condition of the older person
using techniques, it is important to collect the history and present knowledge about the older
patient. This will include identifying personal data such as name, age, address, religion etc.
Then comes the past history collection such as finding out the allergies the person has,
immunizations, surgeries, past illness and injuries that the older person witnessed and also
family medical history (Jarvis, 2015). It states whether the patient family line has any
disorder or illness cases. At last comes the present medical information, such as medications,
treatments therapies the older person is going through.
Palpation: Palpation basically used in order collect data using sensory actions of touch in the
hands and finger. Palpation is a process which is used for assessment in various physical
assessment parts, such as to pulses, texture of skin, body temperature, hair condition, tumour
presence or pain (Kristensen et al., 2015). The nurse may use her fingertips to check the
pulses of the older person and other physical assessments.
Inspection: Inspection is the methodology which is most commonly used for the physical
assessment process. It is a process in which the intelligences of vision, smell, and audible
range are used for data collection (Harte et al., 2017). The healthcare giver, using the
knowledge of vision, hearing and smell will understand the difficulties and problems in the
health of the older person.
Percussion: Percussion is an important technique used for health assessment in which the
size, location, and thickness of the portions under the skin are examined by drumming the

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affected area and observing the resonance of the sound waves. The technique is used by the
nurse to understand and observe the older person (Varvarigou et al., 2016).
Auscultation: Auscultation is a method of information collected which involves stethoscope
or various other sound speaker usage in order to make the sounds of the heart beat and lungs
louder and more clear. This will be used to report the data about the heart beat rate and other
respiratory tract conditions of the older person (Gardezi et al., 2018).
Clinical Reasoning Cycle 3:
From the health assessment interview, a knowledge about the health status and barrier
to health of the older people was obtained. There are various issues that are resulting as a
barrier to health access and conditions for the type of population. The affordability of the
healthcare service is one of the reasons of the barrier. The financial status and pension cuts
that these older people witness makes it difficult for them to afford such expensive and
proper healthcare treatments (Temple & Williams, 2018). Pharmaceutical access is also one
of the issues that the older people face which can be either because of the lack of availability
of appropriate medications in their areas or may be because of their lack of ability to put
effort to visit the stores. Next is the Primary care service utilization, as it was found that the
elder people visit the emergency words in a sever health condition because they miss or skip
the regular check-ups or primary addressing for their respective diseases or difficulties, which
later induces and becomes a serious issue for them (Amjad et al.,2016). It is also found d that
elder people with various disorders related to their movement or memory makes it more
difficult for them to access to health care which is effecting their health conditions in a much
sever way.

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Conclusion
The assignment concludes about the interview practice that should be performed for
the health assessment for older people which will help in understanding more precisely the
health related issues and barrier they face because of the age group. It also states about the
specific criteria that should be followed to address a proper privacy maintained interview
session, the techniques and steps that needs to be followed. It also highlighted the barriers
they have been facing in order to get proper healthcare treatment and facilities.

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