One of the things that mental health nurses must do on a continuous basis with their clients is monitoring their mental status. In this pair of vignettes, you will see a novice and expert nurse conducting a mental status assessment with a client who is difficult to engage.
Subjects: Specific Career Information
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Client With Dementia and Agitation / Anxiety
It can be very challenging for mental health nurses to care for persons with dementias like Alzheimer’s disease. In this pair of vignettes, a novice tries to comfort and re-orient an older man with dementia in a nursing home. Then we witness how a more experienced nurse is able to help the older man feel much less anxious about his current situation. A second set of vignettes demonstrates some of the skills and techniques needed when caring for a person with severe anxiety.
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Client Experiencing Mania
Our next example demonstrates a nurses who is finding it quite challenging to care for a client who is suffering from a condition called manic depression. The novice nurse is really struggling as she tries to maintain control over a home visit she is making to her client. In the second scenario the expert nurse also finds it difficult to maintain control over the visit, but manages to do so in a much more skillful and confident manner. The expert nurse also makes an important follow-up telephone call after her visit.
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Mental Health Nursing – Complete Series
The following programs take you through the most common scenarios a mental health nurse may encounter when dealing with patients who suffer from one of these five main mental health illnesses. To point out to students where the common error and small mistakes of a nursing student may be made, each program demonstrates how a novice nurse handles a situation. The second vignette is each series shows us how a more experienced and proficient nurse takes care of a client using advanced skills and knowledge. Includes: Depressed/Suicidal Client; Verbally & Physically Aggressive Client/Delusions; Mental Status Assessment/Client Diagnosed with Borderline Personality; Client with Dementia & Agitation/Anxiety; The Client Experiencing Mania.
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Depressed / Suicidal Client
Most of us can relate to being “down” or “blue” at various points in our lives, but occasionally mental health nurses are called upon to care for persons with severe depression. In these two vignettes you’ll see how to avoid some of the common mistakes made by novice nurses, and how an expert nurse is able to help a depressed and suicidal client.
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Verbally and Physically Aggressive Client / Delusions
Unfortunately, mental health nurses may have to care for persons who, for a variety of reasons, may be physically threatening or aggressive. With a variety of special intervention skills and knowledge the expert mental health nurse demonstrates how to care safely and effectively for these patients. The situation example also demonstrates how a nurse can build trust and rapport with a client experiencing bizarre thoughts or beliefs – known as delusion.
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You Are What You Eat
This first program in the Food Safety and Sanitation series introduces the topic of food safety in terms of who is at risk and who is responsible, what is food borne illness and how to prevent it, the role of Health inspectors and who to report an illness to, and finally signs and symptoms of food borne illness. This program is intended for anyone who handles or prepares food whether professionally or in the home.
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When Good Food Goes Bad
Following up on the first program in this Food Safety and Sanitation series, this program explains how microbes that cause food borne illness grow and how to prevent that growth, the variety of ways in which these microbes spread and procedures to limit possible contamination. Presented by professionals in the food industry this program explains the issues in clear terms that anyone can understand.
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The Food Safety Survivor Test
The final program in the Food Safety and Sanitation series, this program tests the knowledge of the audience gained from the first two programs. A number of scenarios are presented and the audience is asked to recognize the common everyday food handling and preparation errors that take place. A final scoring is presented at the end. This program is meant to test the safety of your food handling and preparation skills whether you work in the food industry or at home.