Learning Needs Assessment
The learning context for this assessment involves patient fall prevention for the Latino population, whose needs have never been considered by fall prevention programs. The learners in this assessment include older adult Latino patients with a falls history. The lesson is a three-month program that will be carried out at a community center. The learning context of the lesson will entail the various methods to be used to prevent falls by the Latino elderly. Moreover, it will inculcate skills that can improve the population’s capability in reducing falls and barriers that hinder prevention methods. Finally, it will also help nursing students acquire skills for working in culturally diverse communities. The learning needs assessment program will help nursing as well as continuing students to familiarize themselves with core competencies in the care of fall patients. It will help them learn important aspects of patient care, medical knowledge, professionalism, practice-based improvement and learning, and communication skills. The program will impart these core competencies to help upcoming nurses to improve their skills and become compliant with professional guidelines.
Methods
The methods used in this assessment will entail a literature search to collect information related to patient falls that would be included in a survey. The survey will seek knowledge related to risk factors, fall history, attitudes towards falls, and the most preferred method to deliver health information.
Latino staff members at the chosen community center will be trained in health education, dementia care, and senior programming. The survey questions will be developed with the help of the community center’s elderly program. These community partners will offer expertise in the areas of both Latino culture and gerontology. The community center’s Spanish-speaking bilingual staff will be used to translate the survey into their native language.
Results
According to Fulmer et al. (2021), this population exhibits a significant impact of falls, with over 50% reporting such incidents. About 25% of patients who fall require medical attention, with over 80% showing concerns about falling again (Fulmer et al., 2021). A significant number of patients recording falls consider themselves at risk of falling once again. Moreover, over 70% of patients in this population are afraid of falling, with nearly half of themselves allowing this fear to affect their desire to engage in activities (Fulmer et al., 2021). Results indicate a high likelihood of falls for individuals within this population. Over half of such patients have more than five risk factors, the most common being vision impairment and polypharmacy. Less than ten percent of this population did not report falls.
According to a bivariate analysis that evaluates the relationship between risk factors and falling, there is an increase in the number of participants recording falls who had at least one of the risk factors. Those with no risk factors were less likely to fall than those with five or more risk factors. The assessment of various attitudes towards falls acts as either strengths or barriers to fall prevention initiatives of the future. The participants must answer whether they agree, disagree, or are neutral concerning certain aspects of patient falls. Certain beliefs are considered potential barriers to fall prevention and indicate a minimal understanding of the phenomenon.
Content
The topic to be addressed by this lesson plan is patient falls prevention. Its main aim is to define the effect of falls on the Latino elderly population and determine their potential strengths and barriers with regard to falls. It also aims at determining the degree of interest involved in various fall prevention methods, which can be helpful in further advancing some fall prevention initiatives.
The proposed learning is supposed to be cognitive as well as psychomotor. Many older patients suffer from mild cognitive impairment which needs to be controlled through cognitive training to reduce fall risk. Physical exercise effectively improves their psychomotor capabilities, reducing fall rate and risk of falls. Moreover, cognitive training helps to improve older adults’ cognitive functioning, which also helps to reduce the risk of falls (Lipardo & Tsang, 2018). Therefore, the lesson plan is cognitive and psychomotor and aims to reduce the risk and rate of falls in the targeted population.
The main objectives of the lesson would include developing a needs assessment of falls in older patients of Latino origin, ascertaining fall prevention strengths and barriers exhibited by this population, and determining the level of interest they exhibit concerning the various fall prevention methods. Finally, it aims at providing nursing students the chance to participate in a culturally-diverse community program.
The lesson aims at fulfilling the needs of elderly patients by reducing patient falls by eliminating risk factors. These risk factors include diseases that affect movement and cognitive abilities. On the other hand, it also aims to change the patient’s health behavior through cognitive training to instill positive attitudes towards fall prevention. The lesson aims to reduce barriers to preventing patient falls and increase patients’ strengths in dealing with the phenomenon through cognitive and psychomotor training. The objectives can be measured by evaluating the rate of patient falls within a specific period (Sipilä et al., 2018).
The rationale for these objectives is to help patients to change their negative perceptions about falls prevention and adopt positive health behaviors. The adoption of good health behaviors will decrease risk factors associated with patient falls. Patients can be encouraged to embrace physical exercises as well as develop positive attitudes towards fall prevention programs. Physical exercises will help them improve their physiomotor capabilities and reduce the rate of such falls.The objective can only be met if there is a rapid decrease in the rate of patient falls. On the other side, a change in health behavior can be measured by observing changes in habits and inclinations.
With the help of a needs assessment, these objectives can lead to the expected outcomes because it will indicate that falls pose a serious problem to the elderly. The assessment outcome will confirm or reject previous reports on the prevalence of falls in the elderly population. The expected fall outcomes reflect the objectives outlined in the learning needs assessment. The outcomes will show an increase in falls in the elderly, with many indicating that they are afraid of falling. A large number of elderly patients also have the feeling that they have a higher risk of falling as a result of their age (Mahoney et al., 2020).
Among the four objectives, the most important one is behavior change. Patients can reduce the rate of falls by changing their attitude and behavior towards falls. They need to develop a positive attitude towards falls prevention programs, dependence, diseases, and disability.
References
Fulmer, T., Reuben, D. B., Auerbach, J., Fick, D. M., Galambos, C., & Johnson, K. S. (2021). Actualizing Better Health And Health Care For Older Adults: Commentary describes six vital directions to improve the care and quality of life for all older Americans. Health Affairs, 40(2), 219-225.
Lipardo, D. S., & Tsang, W. W. (2018). Falls prevention through physical and cognitive training (falls PACT) in older adults with mild cognitive impairment: a randomized controlled trial protocol. BMC geriatrics, 18(1), 1-12.
Mahoney, J. E., Gangnon, R., Clemson, L., Jaros, L., Cech, S., & Renken, J. (2020). Outcomes associated with scale-up of the Stepping On falls prevention program: a case study in redesigning for dissemination. Journal of clinical and translational science, 4(3), 250-259.
Sipilä, S., Tirkkonen, A., Hänninen, T., Laukkanen, P., Alen, M., Fielding, R. A.,… & Törmäkangas, T. (2018). Promoting safe walking among older people: the effects of a physical and cognitive training intervention vs. physical training alone on mobility and falls among older community-dwelling men and women (the PASSWORD study): design and methods of a randomized controlled trial. BMC geriatrics, 18(1), 1-12.