Question

As a coordinator, developing individual plans for your clients should always involve collaboration them. These collaborations are only successful if both parties share mutual respect and positive regard. As a coordinator, you must take a leadership role, making sure you establish and maintain appropriate working relationships with your clients, as well as others involved in their care. A vital part of the service delivery process is planning. In order for the planning process to progress smoothly and to be as effective as possible, it is important for you to be thoroughly prepared. This will mean taking into consideration your client and their life stage and needs. You’ll also need to work with them to explain practicalities of the care plan and liaise with the assessor of the person’s requirements prior to the planning session the purpose of planning, what options they have and which might be most appropriate. You’ll need to find out who else needs to be involved in the process, who the person wants involved, and ensure that all stakeholders have the information they need and that the practicalities of the process are organised. In this activity, we will follow two care workers at Fairy Bower Residential Care. Sarina has the role of supervisor within the facility and Jonas is one of her care workers. Both Sarina and Jonas are required to work with clients at the facility and within their own homes.

1. Determine the physical and psychological factors relevant to the person s life stage that will influence service delivery

Jonas is working with Sarina to develop an individualised care plan for Erik, a 60 year old resident at the facility who has recently lost his partner to cancer.

Provide one example of a physiological factor and one example of a psychological factor that needs to be considered in Erik’s care plan.

Answer 1

The psychological (social comparison and expectations, an optimistic or pessimistic outlook on life), physical (good health and mobility, physical functioning) and social (social participation and support) factors have a great influnce on older people.

Examples of psychosocial factors include loneliness. Here the patient have lost her husband . So the loneliness affects there health. It may lead to psychological issues such as anxiety and depression.

The psychosocial factors may influence a physical health outcome through a psychological mechanism.

The physical factors that have to be considered while giving care to older people are physical health problems, life style diseases, alteration in physical functioning and poor nutrition.

While giving individualised care to older women, firstly in the planning process, consider the both psychological and physical factors. Then plan the interventions accordingly.