Helen, 77 years old, had dieted all her lifeor so it seemed. She often chided herself about it. ‘After all, at my age who cares if I’m too fat?

Question Answered step-by-step Helen, 77 years old, had dieted all her life—or so it seemed. Sheoften chided herself about it. “After all, at my age who cares if I’m too fat? I do. It depresses me when I gain weight and then I gain even more when I’m depressed.” At 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 138 pounds, her weight was ideal for her height and age, but Helen, like so many women of her generation, had incorporated the image of women on TV who weighed 105 pounds as her ideal. She had achieved that weight for only a few weeks three or four times in her adult life. She had tried high-protein diets, celery and cottage cheese diets, fasting, commercially pre-pared diet foods, and numerous fad diets. She always discontinued the diets when she perceived any negative effects. She was invested in maintaining her general good health. Her most recent attempt at losing 30 pounds on an all-liquid diet had been unsuccessful and left her feeling constipated, weak, irritable, and mildly nauseated and experiencing heart palpitations. This really frightened her. Her physician criticized her regarding the liquid diet but seemed rather amused while reinforcing that her weight was “just perfect” for her age. In the discussion, the physician pointed out how fortunate she was that she was able to drive to the market, had sufficient money for food, and was able to eat anything with no di-etary restrictions. Helen left his office feeling silly. She was an independent, intel-ligent woman; she had been a successful manager of a large financial office. Before her retirement 7 years ago, her work had consumed most of her energy. There had been no time for family, romance, or hobbies. Lately, she had immersed herself in reading the Harvard Classics as she had promised herself she would when she retired. Unfortunately, now that she had the time to read them, she was losing interest. She knew that she must begin to “pull herself together” and “be grateful for her blessings” just as the physician had said. Based on the case study, develop a nursing care plan using the following pro-cedurea: List Helen’s comments that provide subjective data. • List information that provides objective data. • From these data, identify and state, using an accepted format, two nursing diagnoses you determine are most significant to Helen at this time. List two of Helen’s strengths that you have identified from the data.• Determine and state outcome criteria for each diagnosis. These must reflect some alleviation of the problem identified in the nursing diagnosis and must be stated in concrete and measurable terms.• Plan and state one or more interventions for each diagnosed problem. Provide specific documentation of the source used to determine the appropriate inter-vention. Plan at least one intervention that incorporates Helen’s existing strengths.• Evaluate the success of the intervention. Interventions must correlate directly with the stated outcome criteria to measure the outcome success. Health Science Science Nursing Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)