Nursing Assignment: Caring for a Patient with Huntington's Disease

This nursing assignment focuses on the care of a 57-year-old male patient diagnosed with Huntington's disease, admitted to a medical/rehabilitation unit for assessment of diet and mobility. The assignment highlights the importance of physical and occupational therapy interventions to address the patient's fall risk, mobility issues, and cognitive decline. The report details the rationale behind these interventions, emphasizing the need for muscle strengthening, flexibility improvement, and strategies to enhance the patient's safety and well-being at home. The nursing intervention includes screening the patient for stability and mobility. The student reflects on the experience, discussing the challenges faced, such as time management and emotional preparedness, and the positive outcomes achieved, including increased confidence in caring for patients with neurodegenerative diseases. The student also prepared a diet plan for the patient and checked his medicines. The report also underscores the significance of medication management to minimize the risk of falls, and the importance of a healthy diet for the patient. References to relevant research studies are included to support the chosen interventions and the overall care plan.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
One aspect of the nursing care.........................................................................................................2
One nursing intervention.................................................................................................................2
Rationale..........................................................................................................................................3
Reflection.........................................................................................................................................3
References........................................................................................................................................6

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One aspect of the nursing care
In the given case study the patient is a man of 57 years old and he is suffering from
Huntington disease. He has been admitted to the Medical/ Rehabilitation unit for assessing his
diet and mobility. The medical history of the patient shows that he had suffered from
hypotension, chronic back pain after he got stuck by a car, posterior gluteal reflux and had
reported repeated incidences of fall and also he has high risk of fall (Eisele et al. 2015). Patients
suffering from Huntington disease have a high risk of falling down and in the present scenario,
the patient has repeatedly fallen down. As parts of the brain deteriorates, the movement,
behaviour and the cognition of a person is affected and in this case the mobility of the person is
affected (Henderson et al. 2016). So the nursing aspect which is required in this case is the
requirement of a physical therapist and an occupational therapist. This is because a physical
therapist will improve the strengths of the muscles and also improve the flexibility (Ciancarelli
et al. 2015). The occupational therapist will prepare the patient to cope with any circumstances
as well as make him feel safe at home (Castorina et al. 2015).
One nursing intervention
The nurses are responsible for providing care to the patient. In the given case study the
patient is suffering from Huntington disease and his medical history showed evidences of fall
and thus he is at severe risk of falling down again (Šumec et al 2015). The patient is also taking
several medicines because of his previous diseases. Except the doctors the nurses spend most of
the time with the patient and the nurse is responsible for providing the best care according to the
requirements of the patients. In this case the patient is at high risk of falling down because of
Huntington disease (Domaradzki 2015). The most important nursing intervention include

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screening the patient properly for checking the skills of stability and mobility like supine to sit,
whether the patient need any support for sitting or not, walking, standing and also the patient is
under several medicines so the patient may also fall down because of polypharmacy. If a person
is in more than four medicines then polypharmacy may happen (Masnoon et al.2017).The nurse
need to make sure whether the medicines that the patient is taking at present are the reasons of
falling or not. If the nurse finds that the patient is getting hampered by the medicines then it can
be changed and new medicines can be applied.
Rationale
The patient is already suffering from Huntington disease, so he has risks of falling down.
Apart from showing several incidences of fall, the patient had also suffered from several other
diseases and for which the patient is in several medications (Schlachetzki et al. 2017). Taking of
different types of medicines may increase the risk of fall. So if require the nurse need to change
the medicines and provide new medicines so that the chances of falling down get reduced. The
patient must be screened properly to know that exactly at what conditions the patient have the
risk of falling down. By analysing the conditions properly, the nurse should move accordingly
(David et al. 2015).
Reflection
The aspect of nursing care chosen for this present case study is providing physical
therapy and occupational therapy to the patient. The physical therapy is one of the promising
therapy to a patient suffering from neurodegenerative disease involving Hartington disease
(Tarolli, Chesire and Biglan 2017). Previous research studies showed that the efficacy of the
physical therapy is able to reduce the risk of falling to the patents suffering from Hartington

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disease (Cox, Platt and Zhang 2015). In the present case the patient was given physical therapy
to increase the strength of the muscles and the occupational therapy as he was not willing to take
care at home. The physical activity not only improve the daily functional activities of the patient
but also improve the cognition, quality of life and in disease progression (Baratin et al. 2015).
The occupational therapist is required as the patient needs to know to cope up with any
circumstances. The patient denied taking care at home and for this reason he was sent to the
MRU. Apart from allowing the patient to take physical therapy I cared for her. I have prepared a
diet plan needed especially for him. Because of the Hartington disease, the patient lost weight so
he needed a healthy diet plan. I used to provide him medicines time to time ad he was unaware of
his medicines.
Before this experience I was nervous as this was the first time I took care of a patient
suffering from neurodegenerative disease. I was not sure whether I would be able to carry on all
the activities of the care plan correctly and comprehensively. But slowly and slowly as I started
taking care of him my fear faded away and I completed the whole process of taking care
confidently. I took the use of the best available practices for taking care of this patient. I
researched on the different diet plans that are set for a patient who is at risk of falling down.
After that I prepared the diet plan for him (Oñatibia‐Astibia, Franco and Martínez‐Pinilla, 2017).
I had also thoroughly checked the medicines of the patient to become sure that he is suffering
from polypharmacy or not (Klamroth et al. 2016). The experience was completed successfully as
the condition of the patient was improved after the course of treatment was over.
The positive aspect of the experience was that I was successfully able to take care of the
patient apart from the fact that this patient was my first patient suffering from neurodegenerative

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disorder. The negative aspect of this experience was that I could not able to manage the time
properly.
This experience has increased my confidence about taking care of the patients suffering
from neurodegenerative diseases. In future I will try to overcome my negatives and will provide
the patients having the risks of fall due to disease Hartington disease with extreme care so that
they can start recovering after the course of treatment is over.
After taking care of this patient my knowledge about the Hartington disease has increased
a lot. My knowledge about the medications of the patients suffering from this disease has already
increased a lot. In future this experience will help me a lot in taking care of the patients suffering
from neurodegenerative diseases in a far better way.

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References
Baratin, E., Sugavaneswaran, L., Umapathy, K., Ioana, C. and Krishnan, S., 2015. Wavelet-
based characterization of gait signal for neurological abnormalities. Gait & posture, 41(2),
pp.634-639.
Castorina, A., Szychlinska, M.A., Marzagalli, R. and Musumeci, G., 2015. Mesenchymal stem
cells-based therapy as a potential treatment in neurodegenerative disorders: is the escape from
senescence an answer?. Neural regeneration research, 10(6), p.850.
Ciancarelli, I., De Amicis, D., Di Massimo, C., Sandrini, G., Pistarini, C., Carolei, A. and
Ciancarelli, M.G.T., 2015. Influence of intensive multifunctional neurorehabilitation on neuronal
oxidative damage in patients with Huntington’s disease. Functional neurology, 30(1), p.47.
Cox, D.B.T., Platt, R.J. and Zhang, F., 2015. Therapeutic genome editing: prospects and
challenges. Nature medicine, 21(2), p.121.
David, F.J., Robichaud, J.A., Leurgans, S.E., Poon, C., Kohrt, W.M., Goldman, J.G., Comella,
C.L., Vaillancourt, D.E. and Corcos, D.M., 2015. Exercise improves cognition in Parkinson's
disease: The PRET‐PD randomized, clinical trial. Movement Disorders, 30(12), pp.1657-1663.
Domaradzki, J., 2015. The impact of Huntington disease on family carers: a literature
overview. Psychiatr Pol, 49(5), pp.931-944.
Eisele, Y.S., Monteiro, C., Fearns, C., Encalada, S.E., Wiseman, R.L., Powers, E.T. and Kelly,
J.W., 2015. Targeting protein aggregation for the treatment of degenerative diseases. Nature
reviews Drug discovery, 14(11), p.759.

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Henderson, E.J., Lord, S.R., Brodie, M.A., Gaunt, D.M., Lawrence, A.D., Close, J.C., Whone,
A.L. and Ben-Shlomo, Y., 2016. Rivastigmine for gait stability in patients with Parkinson's
disease (ReSPonD): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial. The Lancet
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Klamroth, S., Steib, S., Gaßner, H., Goßler, J., Winkler, J., Eskofier, B., Klucken, J. and Pfeifer,
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Masnoon, N., Shakib, S., Kalisch-Ellett, L. and Caughey, G.E., 2017. What is polypharmacy? A
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Aminian, K., Eskofier, B.M., Winkler, J. and Klucken, J., 2017. Wearable sensors objectively
measure gait parameters in Parkinson’s disease. PloS one, 12(10), p.e0183989.
Šumec, R., Filip, P., Sheardová, K. and Bareš, M., 2015. Psychological benefits of
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