Patient Education and Counseling

Question: Describe a method for providing both the patient and family with education and explain your rationale. Answer: The case study is about a 76-year-old male with cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure. He also has 4+ pitting edema and labored breathing. He has to take a lot of medicines and face difficulty in maintaining diet restrictions. Approach to the care of such patients will include giving them pharmacological, non-pharmacological and invasive strategies to reduce their manifestation of heart failure and edema. Such patients should encouraged to increase their physical activity and manage their body weight. A combination of lifestyle, diet and medicines changes is extremely useful to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with the disease (Amarasingham et al., 2013). The treatment plan for the patient with lifestyles changes focuses on changing diet and lifestyle of patients. Sodium or salt is the reason for accumulation of excess fluid in the body. Therefore Mr. P will have to decrease the amount of salt in food to keep heart failure under control. The amount to be taken should be consulted by doctors. People with heart failure should also consume less than 2 liters of water. Such patients should always monitor their weight gain because gaining weight is a sign of more fluid retention in the body. Overweight person heart works harder to supply blood and oxygen to different parts of the body. So maintaining weight is crucial to reducing manifestation of heart failure. The patient should also quit smoking and avoid alcohol as it also creates a risk of heart attack. Cardiac rehab and exercising are helpful in improving the fitness of cardiovascular system and heart failure. In a case of management of medicine Mr. P, a diuretic is essential to get r id of excess dietary fluid. Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, beta-blocker and angiotensin receptor blocker reduces symptoms of heart failure by widening blood vessels and lowering blood pressure. To control abnormal heart rhythms, implantable cardioverter defibrillator device is used to give shock and bring heart to its normal rhythm. In the case of severe patients, heart valve surgery or coronary artery angioplasty is recommended (McMurray et al., 2012). Proper teaching method is necessary to manage heart failure. Early intervention is needed to reduce symptoms, improve the quality of life, minimize the rate of hospitalization and reduce medical cost. Therefore teaching method will include counseling patients and family member, promoting an integrated approach to care by timely assessment and management, encouraging compliance with the treatment regimen and facilitating implementation of an outpatient model of health care delivery (Jaarsma et al., 2013). This section is about teaching plan for managing heart failure. Patients wife should be educated on strictly minimizing sodium in Mr. P's diet, and she should also educate on why it is necessary to take this step. Self-care and family support is essential to keep patient positive during the treatment procedure. Mr. P and his wife should be made aware that if Mr. P restricts fluid and sodium intake in their diet, monitors weight daily, performs exercise and reduce medications, then they can minimize the risk of hospitalization. Following strict treatment, the regimen will reduce the morbidity and also minimize the cost associated with treatment. Patient and family members should be educated on how to identify signs and symptoms of heart failure such as edema, weight gain, fatigue, and dyspnea. Medication routine should be presented in a schematic way, and they should be made aware of medicines, their precise dose, schedule and specific side effects (Moser et al., 2012). Reference Amarasingham, R., Patel, P. C., Toto, K., Nelson, L. L., Swanson, T. S., Moore, B. J., ... Drazner, M. H. (2013). Allocating scarce resources in real-time to reduce heart failure readmissions: a prospective, controlled study.BMJ quality safety,22(12), 998-1005. Jaarsma, T., Strmberg, A., Gal, T. B., Cameron, J., Driscoll, A., Duengen, H. D., ... Kberich, S. (2013). Comparison of self-care behaviors of heart failure patients in 15 countries worldwide.Patient education and counseling,92(1), 114-120. McMurray, J. J., Adamopoulos, S., Anker, S. D., Auricchio, A., Bhm, M., Dickstein, K., ... Jaarsma, T. (2012). ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure 2012.European journal of heart failure,14(8), 803-869. Moser, D. K., Dickson, V., Jaarsma, T., Lee, C., Stromberg, A., Riegel, B. (2012). Role of self-care in the patient with heart failure.Current cardiology reports,14(3), 265-275.