Assignment: Decision Tree for Neurological and Musculoskeletal Disorders

For your Assignment, your Instructor will assign you one of the decision tree interactive media pieces provided in the Resources. As you examine the patient case studies in this module’s Resources, consider how you might assess and treat patients presenting symptoms of neurological and musculoskeletal disordersTo PrepareReview the interactive media piece assigned by your Instructor.Reflect on the patient’s symptoms and aspects of the disorder presented in the interactive media piece.Consider how you might assess and treat patients presenting with the symptoms of the patient case study you were assigned.You will be asked to make three decisions concerning the diagnosis and treatment for this patient. Reflect on potential co-morbid physical as well as patient factors that might impact the patient’s diagnosis and treatment.Interactive media piece:  Alzheimer’s DiseaseMr. Akkad is a 76 year old Iranian male who is brought to your office by his eldest son for “strange behavior.” Mr. Akkad was seen by his family physician who ruled out any organic basis for Mr. Akkad’s behavior. All laboratory and diagnostic imaging tests (including CT-scan of the head) were normal.According to his son, he has been demonstrating some strange thoughts and behaviors for the past two years, but things seem to be getting worse. Per the client’s son, the family noticed that Mr. Akkad’s personality began to change a few years ago. He began to lose interest in religious activities with the family and became more “critical” of everyone. They also noticed that things he used to take seriously had become a source of “amusement” and “ridicule.”Over the course of the past two years, the family has noticed that Mr. Akkad has been forgetting things. His son also reports that sometimes he has difficult “finding the right words” in a conversation and then will shift to an entirely different line of conversation.SUBJECTIVEDuring the clinical interview, Mr. Akkad is pleasant, cooperative and seems to enjoy speaking with you. You notice some confabulation during various aspects of memory testing, so you perform a Mini-Mental State Exam. Mr. Akkad scores 18 out of 30 with primary deficits in orientation, registration, attention & calculation, and recall. The score suggests moderate dementia.MENTAL STATUS EXAMMr. Akkad is 76 year old Iranian male who is cooperative with today’s clinical interview. His eye contact is poor. Speech is clear, coherent, but tangential at times. He makes no unusual motor movements and demonstrates no tic. Self-reported mood is euthymic. Affect however is restricted. He denies visual or auditory hallucinations. No delusional or paranoid thought processes noted. He is alert and oriented to person, partially oriented to place, but is disoriented to time and event [he reports that he thought he was coming to lunch but “wound up here”- referring to your office, at which point he begins to laugh]. Insight and judgment are impaired. Impulse control is also impaired as evidenced by Mr. Akkad’s standing up during the clinical interview and walking towards the door. When you asked where he was going, he stated that he did not know. Mr. Akkad denies suicidal or homicidal ideation.Diagnosis: Major neurocognitive disorder due to Alzheimer’s disease (presumptive)RESOURCES§ Folstein, M. F., Folstein, S. E., & McHugh, P. R. (2002). Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.Assignment:Write a 1- to 2-page summary paper that addresses the following:Briefly summarize the patient case study you were assigned, including each of the three decisions you took for the patient presented.Based on the decisions you recommended for the patient case study, explain whether you believe the decisions provided were supported by the evidence-based literature. Be specific and provide examples. Be sure to support your response with evidence and references from outside resources.What were you hoping to achieve with the decisions you recommended for the patient case study you were assigned? Support your response with evidence and references from outside resources.Explain any difference between what you expected to achieve with each of the decisions and the results of the decision in the exercise. Describe whether they were different. Be specific and provide examples.

Evidence-Based Project, Part 4: Critical Appraisal of Research

To Prepare:Review the Resources and consider the importance of critically appraising research evidence.Reflect on the four peer-reviewed articles you selected in Module 2 and analyzed in Module 3.Review and download the Critical Appraisal Tools document provided in the Resources.The Assignment (Evidence-Based Project)Part 4A: Critical Appraisal of ResearchConduct a critical appraisal of the four peer-reviewed articles  you selected and analyzed by completing the Critical Appraisal Tools  document. Be sure to include:An evaluation tableA levels of evidence tableAn outcomes synthesis tablePart 4B: Critical Appraisal of ResearchBased on your appraisal, in a 1-2-page critical appraisal,  suggest a best practice that emerges from the research you reviewed.  Briefly explain the best practice, justifying your proposal with APA  citations of the research.

part 1

For this assessment, you will create a 2-4 page report on an interview you have conducted with a health care professional. You will identify an issue from the interview that could be improved with an interdisciplinary approach, and review best practices and evidence to address the issue.As a baccalaureate-prepared nurse, your participation and leadership in interdisciplinary teams will be vital to the health outcomes for your patients and organization. One way to approach designing an improvement project is to use the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement describes it thus:The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle is shorthand for testing a change in the real work setting—by planning it, trying it, observing the results, and acting on what is learned. This is the scientific method adapted for action-oriented learning…Essentially, the PDSA cycle helps you test out change ideas on a smaller scale before evaluating the results and making adjustments before potentially launching into a somewhat larger scale project (n.d.).You might also recognize that the PDSA cycle resembles the nursing process. The benefit of gaining experience with this model of project design is that it provides nurses with an opportunity to ideate and lead improvements. For this assessment, you will not be implementing all of the PDSA cycle. Instead, you are being asked to interview a health care professional of your choice to determine what kind of interdisciplinary problem he or she is experiencing or has experienced in the workplace. This interview, in Assessment 2, will inform the research that you will conduct to propose a plan for interdisciplinary collaboration in Assessment 3.ReferenceInstitute for Healthcare Improvement. (n.d.). How to improve. Retrieved from http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/HowtoImprove/default.aspxDemonstration of Proficiency· Competency 2: Explain how interdisciplinary collaboration can be used to achieve desired patient and systems outcomes.o Summarize an interview focused on past or current issues at a health care organization.o Describe collaboration approaches from the literature that could be relevant in establishing or improving an interdisciplinary team to address an organizational issue.· Competency 3: Describe ways to incorporate evidence-based practice within an interdisciplinary team.o Identify an issue from an interview for which an evidence-based interdisciplinary approach would be appropriate.· Competency 4: Explain how change management theories and leadership strategies can enable interdisciplinary teams to achieve specific organizational goals.o Describe change theories and a leadership strategy that could help develop an interdisciplinary solution to an organizational issue.· Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly, evidence-based communication strategies to impact patient, interdisciplinary team, and systems outcomes.o Communicate with writing that is clear, logically organized, and professional, with correct grammar and spelling, using current APA style.Professional ContextThis assessment will introduce the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Model to create change in an organization. By interviewing a colleague of your choice, you will begin gathering information about an interprofessional collaboration problem that your colleague is experiencing or has experienced. You will identify a change theory and leadership strategies to help solve this problem.ScenarioThis assessment is the first of three related assessments in which you will gather interview information (Assessment 2); design a proposal for interdisciplinary problem-solving, (Assessment 3); and report on how an interdisciplinary improvement plan could be implemented in a place of practice (Assessment 4). At the end of the course, your interviewee will have a proposal plan based on the PDSA cycle that he or she could present to stakeholders to address an interdisciplinary problem in the workplace.For this assessment, you will need to interview a health care professional such as a fellow learner, nursing colleague, administrator, business partner, or another appropriate person who could provide you with sufficient information regarding an organizational problem that he or she is experiencing or has experienced, or an area where they are seeking improvements. Consult theInterview Guide(attached) for an outline of how to prepare and the types of information you will need to complete this project successfully.Remember: this is just the first in a series of three assessments.InstructionsFor this assessment, you will report on the information that you collected in your interview, analyzing the interview data and identifying a past or current issue that would benefit from an interdisciplinary approach. This could be an issue that has not been addressed by an interdisciplinary approach or one that could benefit from improvements related to the interdisciplinary approach currently being used. Additionally, you will start laying the foundation for your Interdisciplinary Plan Proposal (Assessment 3) by researching potential change theories, leadership strategies, and collaboration approaches that could be relevant to issue you have identified.When submitting your plan, use theInterview and Issue Identification Template(attached), which will help you to stay organized and concise. As you complete the template, make sure you use APA format for in-text citations for the evidence and best practices that are informing your plan, as well as for the reference list at the end.Additionally, be sure to address the following, which corresponds to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Please study the scoring guide carefully so you understand what is needed for a distinguished score.· Summarize an interview focused on past or current issues at a health care organization.· Identify an issue from an interview for which an evidence-based interdisciplinary approach would be appropriate.· Describe potential change theories and a leadership strategies that could inform an interdisciplinary solution to an organizational issue.· Describe collaboration approaches from the literature that could facilitate establishing or improving an interdisciplinary team to address an organizational issue.· Communicate with writing that is clear, logically organized, and professional, with correct grammar and spelling, and using current APA style.Additional Requirements· Length of submission: Use the provided template. Most submissions will be 2 to 4 pages in length. Be sure to include a reference page at the end of the plan.· Number of references: Cite a minimum of 3 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your central ideas. Resources should be no more than 5 years old.· APA formatting: Make sure that in-text citations and reference list follow current APA style.

Develop a professional product to improve care or the patient experience related to the identified health problem with a 2-4 page summary of intervention findings, evidence, and best-practice basis for the professional product.

Demonstration of ProficiencyBy successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:Competency 1: Lead people and processes to improve patient, systems, and population outcomes.Explain the ways in which leadership of people and processes was utilized while designing an intervention and its implementation.Competency 2: Make clinical and operational decisions based upon the best available evidence.Justify decisions related to developing a professional product with relevant research, evidence, and best practices.Competency 3: Transform processes to improve quality, enhance patient safety, and reduce the cost of care.Demonstrate process improvements in the quality, safety, or cost of care resulting from an intervention and related professional product.Competency 7: Implement patient-centered care to improve quality of care and the patient experience.Demonstrate improvements in the quality of care and patient experience resulting from an intervention and related professional product.Competency 8: Integrate professional standards and values into practice.Communicate professionally in clear, logically organized writing, using correct grammar, spelling, and APA style.Important: You must complete all of the assessments in order for this course.PreparationBefore submitting this assessment, you must have logged at least three direct-contact hours inCORE ELMS. These hours will include only the time that you spent working directly with patients, families, and/or community members to implement your intervention, collect and analyze data, and deliver your professional product to your target audience.InstructionsFor this assessment, you will develop and deliver a professional product to address the health problem defined in your first assessment to improve care and the patient experience. This will be delivered face-to-face to the individual or group that you have identified. Appropriate examples include development of a community education program focused on a particular health issue or a handout to help the elderly and their families understand their Medicare and Medicaid options. The product must be useful in a practice setting, relevant to your project, and designed to improve some aspect of care or the patient experience that can be used in your own practice, with your family or community.Relevant products include but are not limited to:Patient education handout (such as a medication sheet).Patient safety plan.Process improvement in-service.Medicaid/Medicare patient coverage and finance guide.Teaching plan.Your submission will consist of two parts: an APA-formatted paper providing your rationale and supporting evidence, and the professional product.For the brief APA-style paper, one organizational option is:Summary of intervention and implementation:What did you do?How did you lead in terms of the processes used in the project?With what participants?Who were your interprofessional collaborators?How did you lead them in this project?What were your key findings?Evidence-based rationale for professional product development:What professional product did you develop?Why did you choose this type of product?How does it align with your intervention?How will the product help improve outcomes?How will the product enhance the patient experience?How does the product improve a process related to quality, safety, and/or cost of care?How do relevant research, evidence, and best practices support your choice of professional product and approach?For your professional product, you may choose to develop a deliverable that could be used in your care setting to communicate and sustain relevant improvements related to the intervention you carried out. The key is that the professional product is useful to the target audience (such as a large-print Medicaid/Medicare patient coverage and finance guide that is easy for the elderly and their families to use, or an easily implemented process improvement in-service for home care nurses).Your brief paper and professional product will be assessed according to the following scoring guide criteria:Explain the ways in which leadership of people and processes was utilized while designing an intervention and its implementation.Demonstrate process improvements in the quality, safety, or cost of care as a result of a direct clinical intervention and newly developed professional product.Demonstrate improvements in the patient experience resulting from a direct clinical intervention and newly developed professional product.Justify decisions related to developing a professional product using relevant research, evidence, and best practices.Communicate professionally in writing that is clear and logically organized, with correct grammar, spelling, and use of APA style.Additional RequirementsLength of submission: APA-style paper should be 2–4 pages of content plus title and reference pages. There is no length requirement for your professional product. The type of deliverable you choose will determine its length and format.Number of references: Cite a minimum of 5 sources of scholarly or professional evidence that support your decisions and rationale in your APA-style paper. Resources should be no more than 5 years old.APA formatting: References and citations are formatted according to current APA style. Use appropriate APA citations (in-text and reference list) in the paper and professional product.

Picot Statement final Draft

Prepare this assignment as a 1,500-1,750 word paper using the instructor feedback from the previous course assignments and the guidelines below.PICOT QuestionRevise the PICOT question you wrote in the Topic 1 assignment using the feedback you received from your instructor.(assignment 1 is attached)The final PICOT question will provide a framework for your capstone project (the project students must complete during their final course in the RN-BSN program of study).Research CritiquesIn the Topic 2 and Topic 3 assignments, you completed a qualitative and quantitative research critique on two articles for each type of study (4 articles total). Use the feedback you received from your instructor on these assignments to finalize the critical analysis of each study by making appropriate revisions.The completed analysis should connect to your identified practice problem of interest that is the basis for your PICOT question.(assignments 2, 3 attached)Refer to “Research Critiques and PICOT Guidelines – Final Draft.”(see attachment). Questions under each heading should be addressed as a narrative in the structure of a formal paper.(Proposed Evidence-Based Practice ChangeDiscuss the link between the PICOT question, the research articles, and the nursing practice problem you identified. Include relevant details and supporting explanation and use that information to propose evidence-based practice changes.General RequirementsPrepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion(Rubric attached).

June week 3

Do you agree with the following  post? Why or why not?Find an online resource related to health promotion and disease prevention of mental health issues for families that you think would be helpful to those who are struggling. This resource should focus on families and their needs, not the person with mental illness.POST 1Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States (Chesnay and Anderson, 2020). Suicide does not discriminate between age, sex, race/ethnicity, and geographical location however, it is 4 times more likely in males than females. The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention has put in place an act called, “Zero Suicide”. It is a program used to provide information about suicide risk screening tools and steps to take when a patient screens positive for suicide risk. Healthcare settings have a significant role in preventing suicide when screening during routine appointments. This is due to the large number of patients they see from a variety of backgrounds (King, Horwitz, Czyz, and Lindsey, 2017). There are many tools used to assess for mental health concerns and suicide that is encouraged to be utilized by healthcare providers during routine appointments. These screenings include PHQ-9, PHQ-2, SBQ-R, C-SSRS, and ED-SAFE Patient Safety Screener. The PHQ-9 is the most common and incorporates DSM-IV depression diagnostic criteria into a tool for screening, diagnosing, monitoring, and measuring the severity (King, Horwitz, Czyz, and Lindsey, 2017). Theses screenings would pertain to John because if the provider would have assessed him with a PHQ-9 exam, they would have been able to further determine severity of his mental health and suicidal risk. This would have helped them formulate a better discharge plan other than returning “home”.What events in John’s life created a “downward spiral” into homelessness and hopelessness? Which events were related to social needs, mental health needs, and medical needs, and which could health care have addressed?Events that lead to John’s “downward spiral” in my opinion started when he was young growing up with two alcoholics and having an abusive dad.  This situation created a high risk for John to abuse alcohol, engage in abusive behavior, and to have mental health issues. His “downward spiral” into homelessness and hopelessness began when he lost his job. The stress this caused him to begin drinking more frequently. With a history of growing up in an alcoholic home, increased stress later in life puts John at a higher risk for developing alcoholism. His alcohol usage then created tension between him and his wife, which lead to arguments and eventually abusive behavior. “Alcohol abuse and alcoholism within a family is a problem that can destroy a marriage or drive a wedge between members. That means people who drink can blow through the family budget, cause fights, ignore children, and otherwise impair the health and happiness of the people they love. Of married couples who get into physical altercations, some 60-70 percent abuse alcohol. In time, family members may even develop symptoms of codependency, inadvertently keeping the addiction alive, even though it harms them” (Watkins, 2020).Events that were related to his social needs stem from when he was younger growing up with two alcoholic parents and an abusive father. He was neglected of socialization and stability of healthy parents and family life from a young age. His mental health needs were neglected when he was younger as well as through out his adult life. Events that are related to his mental health needs are his childhood, stressor of losing job, engaging in more frequent alcohol use, and becoming angrier and arguing with his wife. At any point, these events could have been evaluated and he could have received help in dealing with these situations rather than letting them progress. Events related to his medical needs did not really develop until after he began engaging in risky behavior and increase in stressors. He was otherwise healthy, other than smoking a ½ pack of cigarettes a day as well as occasional drinking. Health care could have addressed all of these needs in any appointment whether scheduled or an emergency visit through routine examination questionnaires.utilizing at least two scholarly references per peer post. APA formatPOST 2Do you agree with the following  post? Why or why not?Find an online resource related to health promotion and disease prevention of mental health issues for families that you think would be helpful to those who are struggling. This resource should focus on families and their needs, not the person with mental illness.What events in John’s life created a “downward spiral” into homelessness and hopelessness? Which events were related to social needs, mental health needs, and medical needs, and which could health care have addressed? What were some of the barriers John faced in accessing medical care and mental health care?The purpose of this discussion is to analyze the case study of an individual referred to as John who lost his job, which led to other cascading events and to answer the above questions. Some of the cascading effects including his health situation will be described. John was the sole breadwinner in his home. After losing his job the dynamics of his relationship with his wife who was a stay at home mother was affected. In addition to losing his job, certain events that took place forming a downward spiral for John were his negative coping strategy and losing his family.Individuals engage in either positive or negative coping behaviors to deal with stressful events in life such as divorce, death, or some other crisis. Whichever coping behavior is chosen, the individual performs these actions as a way of dealing with emotions or how they are feeling (Good Therapy, 2018). Unfortunately for John he chose to manage is stress by drinking alcohol. His situation would only worsen after fighting with his wife, which resulted in her leaving him. John was left alone in a home without a job and therefore could not afford a place to live anymore. This led to his homelessness and hopelessness particularly when he could no longer stay with family and friends due to his increased drinking and anger outbursts.At the time where John needed a place to stay, he had some support from family and friends, which served his social needs. However, a major part of the problem was the absence of his social needs from his immediate family, which contributed to his downward spiral. John was faced with depression, a mental health need, which worsened as he began to live on the street. Since depression is a common risk factor for suicide (Ng et al., 2017), John expressed hopelessness with thoughts of ending his life. Moreover, increased rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts are common in homeless individuals Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2015).John had medical needs due to recurrent skin infections, colds, and injuries which required care. However, now that he was homeless and without a job he did not have health insurance or money, which were barriers that did not allow him to have the medical or mental health care he needed. Had the providers screened John for homelessness and mental illness, his social, mental health, and medical needs could have been addressed. According to SAMHSA (2015), homeless individuals with disorders such as mental or substance use find themselves isolated from social support. Additionally, these individuals need services that provide stable housing, financial help, food, employment, and medical and mental health care. Therefore, John could have benefitted from screening, which is generally performed at health care settings.Other services that will address John’s needs are suicide screening and preventive services, and early intervention and recovery support (SAMHSA, 2015). US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has recommended a tool that can be currently used in health care settings to screen for depression. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) is one of the tools that can allow Advanced Practice Registered nurses (APRNs) to screen for mental health disorders and provide treatment accordingly (U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, n.d.). Another widely used tool to screen for suicide is the SAD PERSONs suicide assessment tool. This tool is a scale with ten items matching the mnemonic that has been noted to enhance identification of individuals with suicidal tendencies. One point is assigned to each letter in the mnemonic which measures in order, sex, age, depression, previous suicide attempt, ethanol abuse, rational thinking loss, social support lacking, organized suicide plan, no spouse, and sickness (Ng et al., 2017).To conclude, there are many mishaps in life which can cause an individual to become homeless. A strong determining factor is the type of coping mechanism they choose to use. Some individuals engage in maladaptive coping which only worsens the situation. Receiving support from a therapist or mental health professional can help individuals cope with difficult situations and offer better coping strategies (Good Therapy, 2018). Getting this type of service early can prevent downward spiraling of any situation. However, if an individual finds themselves in a predicament of homelessness and poor health, providers can use the opportunity with repetitive acute visit encounters to screen for homelessness, mental health disorders and suicide in order to recognize patients at risk who’s situation may need interception (Ng et al., 2017), early intervention, and recovery support (SAMHSA, 2015).utilizing at least two scholarly references per peer post.  APA format

Comprehensive Assessment Part One: Competency Matrix

Directions:To complete Part One of the DNP Comprehensive Assessment:Use the “Comprehensive Assessment Part One: Competency Matrix” to collect evidence from your completed program coursework to demonstrate how you have met selected competencies of the DNP program. Coursework to review includes:Programmatic Coursework:Reflective JournalsCase ReportsScholarly Activities (DNP 810, DNP-820, DNP-830, and DNP-840)10 Strategic Points (DNP-820)DPI Project Draft Prospectus (DNP-830)Literature Review (DNP-830)Course-based assignments from prior courses (DNP-805 through DNP-840) eligible for Practice Immersion Hours.As you complete the matrix, be sure to select key, specific evidence from your coursework and briefly summarize (no more than 1-2 sentences) how selected assignments demonstrate your achievement of program competencies. As you review your work, take time to review your instructor feedback regarding areas that may have been weak or lacking, or where points were not fully addressed or supported in your submission.

521 replies week 3

4 repliesAPAReferences07/25/2020 10:00 AM ET

Effective Communication with Diverse Audiences

Select and watch a movie that depicts difficult or different methods of communication between individuals with a disability or with other special needs.  An example of this would be the 2003 movie Radio with Cuba Gooding Jr. There are many ways to view this movie on Netflix, HBO, Amazon, etc.First, provide a short summary of the movie, and include the background on the main characters. As discussed in the previous module, utilize person-first language to describe individuals from specialized populations (example: “child with autism,” rather than “autistic child”).Discuss the communication difficulties or barriers between the individuals in the movie. What misunderstandings or obstacles did you observe that prevented clear communication between the characters?Lastly, apply this information directly to healthcare. Why does communication often breakdown between healthcare providers, and patients with special needs? What circumstances from the movie could also be applied to healthcare provider and patients?