Enhancing Pressure Injury Risk Assessment Tools for Older Adults Essay

Introduction

People who are older, have less movement, and have weak skin health can be easily injured by pressure. This is a troubling concern for medical practitioners. Seniors are at higher risk of sustaining pressure ulcers. Reliable instruments are needed to identify the affected people and institute preventive measures that address this risk. This paper outlines that pressure injuries can be evaluated using three evidence-based tools for assessment of risk. This study evaluates if such scales are useful and what contribution they may have towards preventing, curing, and improving the quality of life in older people. Enhancing Pressure Injury Risk Assessment Tools for Older Adults Essay

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Braden Scale

The Braden Scale showed robust performance in hospital settings because it performs the six elements’ general assessment. The subscales constitute touch and slipperiness, which are related to nutrition and activity, as well as friction and shearing. All the subscale scores’ overall scores slightly differ if some subscales got lower scores, which display more warnings than high scores. It has been taken as the actual or the ideal one, which is reliable and good; nonetheless, it needs enhancements to suit the oldies better. Involving other factors, such as cognitive decline or objective measurement of mobility, with the prospect of affecting accuracy as a goal of prediction is important. Enhancing Pressure Injury Risk Assessment Tools for Older Adults Essay

Norton Scale

Mobility includes physical and mental movement, among other risks, placed at level 2 by Norton’s scale, devised by nurses to perform preliminary observations in routine clinical rounds where the high-scoring patient signifies low risks for the patient observed (Kennerly et al., 2021).

Waterlow Scale

The distinctive feature of the Waterlow scale is that it combines 11 risk factors when evaluating patients; these factors are weight and build, to name a few among a group of exceptional hazards (Lanktree et al., 2023). Scoring allows calculating risks based on the severity of damage to regional cells assessed per each patient or the type of tissue breakdown. Specific adaptations for older people, such as considering skin integrity/mobility effects of aging, could be made to elevate the prognostic worth and clinical applicability of its use. These changes are a good idea, but there may also be some added benefits. Enhancing Pressure Injury Risk Assessment Tools for Older Adults Essay

Expected Outcomes of Improvements

Enhancing the risk assessment tools available to older people will yield several positive outcomes. In the beginning, increasing the accuracy of the risk assessment will allow for easier implementation of targeted interventions that would result in better patient outcomes and a reduced risk of injuries that could have been prevented. Healthcare professionals can help improve the skin’s health, decrease the suffering and pain experienced by older people, and ultimately improve the quality of life for those who suffer from these conditions by taking timely preventative measures dependent on an increased risk evaluation. Not least, a decrease in injuries caused by pressure could lead to a reduction in the expenses associated with healthcare. This is because the investment in effective prevention tools, as well as risk assessments, could decrease the need for costly treatment, hospitalizations, and long-term care related to pressure injuries in older adults. Enhancing Pressure Injury Risk Assessment Tools for Older Adults Essay

Conclusion

Current risk assessment methods of pressure injuries are helpful in the clinical setting; however, there is a need for further development, especially in populations comprised of seniors. These instruments can be even more effective in identifying individuals at risk of injury and directing preventative measures if more risk factors are included scoring criteria are reformulated, and age-specific factors are considered. These improvements are expected to lead to better results for patients and lower healthcare costs related to injuries resulting from pressure in older people. Enhancing Pressure Injury Risk Assessment Tools for Older Adults Essay

References

Huang, C., Ma, Y., Wang, C., Jiang, M., Yuet Foon, L., Lv, L., & Han, L. (2021). Predictive validity of the Braden scale for pressure injury risk assessment in adults: a systematic review and meta‐analysis. Nursing open, 8(5), 2194-2207. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/nop2.792 Enhancing Pressure Injury Risk Assessment Tools for Older Adults Essay

Kennerly, S. M., Sharkey, P. D., Horn, S. D., Alderden, J., & Yap, T. L. (2022, November). Nursing assessment of pressure injury risk with the Braden scale validated against sensor-based measurement of movement. In Healthcare (Vol. 10, No. 11, p. 2330). MDPI. https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/10/11/2330

Research for risk assessment tools for pressure injuries. Select two to three evidence-based pressure injury risk assessment tools and compare them for effectiveness.

1. What would you add or remove to make the tool more effective? Are these tools effective for Older Adults?

2. What would be the expected outcomes from the change made in question 1? Would the change have an effect on the healthcare cost burden associated with prevention efforts and treatment of pressure-related injuries in Older Adults? Enhancing Pressure Injury Risk Assessment Tools for Older Adults Essay