Personal care involves activities of daily living (ADL) that involve the promotion and maintenance of personal well-being. These self-care tasks include feeding, bathing, going to the bathroom, grooming and dressing. A personal care deficit is the inability to perform certain daily functions related to health and well-being, such as dressing or bathing. Self-care deficits may be due to physical or mental deficiencies, such as recovery from surgery, depression, or age-related mobility problems. Nurses play an integral role in addressing self-care deficits through evaluation and intervention.
To evaluate, nurses must be aware of the patient's strengths, weaknesses, environment, and situational needs. Intervention can include, but is not limited to, helping patients create short-term goals, stimulating motivation, creating opportunities for independence, and offering help with daily activities. Seeking the help of specialists with a complaint about a sudden decrease in vision in one eye is an important reason for nursing intervention, since the patient experiences discomfort and is temporarily forced to adapt to a new lifestyle. Let's take the example of 32-year-old teacher Jessica who is in need of intervention. She has vision problems in her left eye and requires medical supervision.
Nursing care for Jessica cannot be carried out on the basis of standard attendance rules, and the corresponding diagnoses must be determined. Therefore, nursing diagnoses include anxiety associated with impaired perception, as well as a self-care deficit caused by a sudden decline in vision. Appropriate teaching and nursing care plans can help women prevent the spread of infection and gradually restore their vision. Nursing control will be useful for the patient, since her eye pain requires special care and protection against external stimuli. Dorothy Orem's personal care deficit theory from 1971 is still taught today in nursing schools, and helped shape the holistic approach that nurses now take to patient care. Every day, nurses diagnose self-care deficits and this allows them to design solutions for their patients while remaining aware of their need to be independent and feel that they have control over their rehabilitation and treatment.
The deficit can be the effect of time limitations, such as those one might experience when recovering from surgery, or the result of a gradual deterioration that erodes a person's ability or willingness to perform the activities necessary to care for themselves. When nurses discover that patients are showing signs of a personal care deficit, they look for ways to help them while allowing individual autonomy. To do this, the woman must be told how she can take care of herself and perform her usual actions without straining her sore eye. It's also possible to show you how to care for a damaged eyeball when medical staff aren't around. This care plan is included to give an example of how a nurse (LPN or RN) can plan the treatment of a patient with those conditions. Nursing diagnoses, outcomes and interventions are measures of patient complexity and nursing care requirements in the intensive care unit.
Helping with activities of daily living are skills that are required in nursing and in other professions such as nursing assistants. The most important part of the care plan is its content; it's the foundation on which you'll base your care. In addition, patients who suffer from depression may not have an interest in participating in personal care activities. If you're interested in this rewarding aspect of nursing, Regis College offers online Master of Science in Nursing and Doctorate in Nursing Practice degrees. Orem's theory of self-care deficits explains how nurses can and should intervene to help patients maintain autonomy. Nurses use the term activities of daily living (ADL) to refer to aspects of personal care that patients struggle with.
Nursing care must also be organized taking into account women's temporary disorientation. As justification for choosing this diagnosis, it can be seen that the lack of opportunity to provide full care is both physical and psychological discomfort; this approach is relevant in Jessica's case.
