Question

Mrs. Fatima is 65 years old , celebrating her birthday . She is widow , lost her husband 6 month back . She lives alone but she has grandchildren who sometimes visit her She works as a school teacher . Everyone in the school was thanking her for her good work . Ali is a teacher working in the same school , he commented telling her that you are supposed to be at home by this age , you don't have enough strength to continue your career . Mrs. Fatma has changes in her health condition as now she becomes fatigued easily , she also experience shortness of breath when she walked a blocks , sometimes she experience gastritis

1. What do you think the major role changes Mrs. Fatma is experiencing? As a nurse how you can help her to cope with her new role?

2. As a nurse how you can prepare her for retirement?

Answer 1

1. What do you think the major role changes Mrs. Fatma is experiencing? As a nurse how you can help her to cope with her new role?

Answer: Since Mrs Fatima is 65 years old and now a widow, she would be going through a lot of emotional, physical and mental stress.

1. She could be feeling lonely and helpless at times since her husband is not around to give her moral support. (emotional)
2. She could be feeling weak and lethargic since she is come to her retirement age. (physical)
3. She would not be able to cope up with the work that she does at school now since she is growing old and she would not be able match up to her other staff at work since they would be young and would be more technologically advanced when compared to her. (mental)

Mrs. Fatima would soon be a retired homemaker and she would have to get familiar with all the household work along with coping with the depression due to the loss of her husband.

As her nurse, I could help her with creating daily list of activities that would keep her occupied all day such daily exercise, cooking, gardening, sewing, walking etc., that would help her emotionally, physically and mentally. Also as a nurse, I should ensure that she goes for regular health checkups and takes her medications properly. It would help Mrs. Fatima if she spends time with her family i.e, her children and grandchildren. Spending time with family would make her get used to her routine and also divert from the lifestyle that she earlier followed.

2. As a nurse how you can prepare her for retirement?

Answer: As a nurse, I could advise Mrs. Fatima to invest in proper healthcare schemes that would help her in the future and also advise to invest in periodic vacation.

Since Mrs. Fatima is a widow now, she would need to be occupied and busy most of the time so that she does not miss her husband and go into depression. It would be advisable that she spends more family time or be occupied with motivational activities such as yoga, exercises and other activities that makes her feel good. It would also be advisable if she has a good counsellor or guide to help her relieve her stress that she is going through given the current situation.