Geriatrics
Falls, delirium, polypharmacy, mobility, and safe care transitions.
10 articles
Delirium Prevention for Nurses Caring for Older Adults
Delirium is common, often missed, and frequently preventable in hospitalized older adults. This guide covers risk screening, CAM-based assessment, multicomponent nonpharmacologic prevention bundles, escalation, documentation, and family partnership.
Polypharmacy Review at the Bedside
Older adults often carry long medication lists from multiple prescribers. This bedside guide walks nurses through reconciling the list, screening for high-risk drugs with the Beers Criteria, and supporting safe, team-based deprescribing.
Preventing Falls in Hospitalized Older Adults
A practical, guideline-aligned guide to preventing falls in hospitalized older adults, covering structured risk screening, tailored multifactorial interventions, patient and family engagement, injury prevention, post-fall response, and safe discharge.
Talking With Older Adults So They Can Actually Hear You
Communicating with older adults is a clinical skill. This guide covers reducing noise, facing the patient, lowering pitch, plain language, large-print materials, and teach-back to confirm understanding at the bedside.
Care Transitions That Protect Older Adults From Medication Harm
Care transitions create frequent, dangerous medication discrepancies for older adults. Structured reconciliation, attention to high-alert drugs, teach-back education, and clear handoffs are the nurse's core safeguards against post-discharge harm.
Hearing Loss and Communication Safety in Older Adults
Hearing loss in older adults is easy to miss and easy to mistake for confusion. Practical bedside steps, recognition, hearing-aid support, and face-to-face technique, keep communication safe.
Mobility Preservation During Hospitalization
Bed rest is its own hazard for hospitalized older adults. This article covers how nurses assess mobility at admission, build movement into daily care, and balance fall safety against the risk of deconditioning.
Pressure Injury Prevention in Frail Older Adults
Frail older adults face high pressure injury risk from fragile skin, immobility, incontinence, and poor nutrition. This guide covers the bedside essentials: structured risk assessment, daily skin inspection, repositioning, heel offloading, and nutrition support.
Caregiver Teaching for Safe Discharge
Safe discharge for older adults often hinges on the family caregiver. This guide covers how nurses assess the caregiver, teach with teach-back, and cover medications, warning signs, and follow-up before the patient goes home.
Sensory, Cognitive, and Functional Assessment Basics
In older adults, sensory, cognitive, and functional status are tightly linked, and missing one distorts the others. This is how nurses assess all three together to build a safer, more accurate picture.