Case study 2 Ellen is a 45-year-old woman who lives with her husband Lawrence. A
ID: 127418 • Letter: C
Question
Case study 2
Ellen is a 45-year-old woman who lives with her husband Lawrence. A workplace accident left her with physical disabilities and an acquired brain injury.
Your role today is to assist Ellen to get ready to attend a doctor’s appointment and then to go to lunch with a friend. Lawrence tells you he would like to help.
Ellen is able to transfer from bed to chair and into her wheelchair using grab rails and bars. She uses a wheelchair when she goes out of the house, as she has little strength in her legs and cannot walk without leaning very heavily on supports. Her acquired brain injury has left her with some speech difficulties and word-finding difficulties. She also has difficulty in taking in large chunks of information all at once.
Ellen loves drawing and keeps a little sketch pad beside her at all times, sometimes using this to communicate. She refuses help from either you or her husband in her transfer from bed to wheelchair to shower chair, even though you feel she could use the help. She tells you that she understands that she might fall but that she is prepared to take the chance as she needs to feel more independent. Her husband supports her in this. While she showers independently, you are to prepare her chair and towels. Once she has completed showering, you are to assist her to dry herself, choose appropriate clothing, get dressed and groomed and, finally, assist her to prepare her breakfast. She tells you that she has been having difficulties with her diabetes, and that she has been feeling unwell in the mornings before breakfast
Give an example of an organisational policy that might be referred to by the support worker prior to providing support an name of the policy you are reffereing?
Explanation / Answer
The principle of beneficence: It refers to the duty of healthcare professionals to provide good and to ensure maximum benefit to the public /individual patient while minimizing the possible harm. It concerns the duty of one individual to benefit the other. The goals of all healthcare professionals including the APNs are inherently for the patient’s beneficence or broadly, for the public health. So, beneficence governs all actions of APNs while engaging in professional activities.
In the given case, the patient is at risk of fall, the organizational policy that might be referred to by the support worker prior is, "duty of care," which explains the importance of preventing others from harm without negligence. If the patient does not want to receive care in this regard and take the risk, an informed consent (respecting patient's autonomy) must be taken to avoid any lawsuits in future.