Geriatric Nursing

How assessing older adults differs — atypical presentations, functional assessment, cognition screening, and the framework nurses use to separate normal aging from disease.

The three D's of geriatric cognition — how delirium, dementia, and depression differ in onset, course, and presentation, why delirium is a medical emergency, and the nursing assessment that tells them apart.

Why older adults are at high medication risk — age-related pharmacokinetic changes, Beers Criteria concepts, prescribing cascades, and the nursing review that catches problems first.

Falls are the leading cause of injury in older adults — intrinsic and extrinsic risk factors, post-fall assessment, and the evidence-based interventions that actually reduce falls.

What palliative care is and isn't — symptom-first thinking alongside any treatment, the interdisciplinary team, goals-of-care conversations, and when to advocate for a referral.

The final weeks, days, and hours — recognizing the dying process, comfort care at the bedside (mouth care, positioning, oxygen for comfort), and supporting the family through the death.

Compassionate extubation and terminal weaning — the ethics of withdrawal vs withholding, double effect, preparing the family, premedication, and the nurse's role at the bedside.

Normal, anticipatory, complicated, and disenfranchised grief — the stages model used honestly, supporting bereaved families and children, and the nurse's own accumulated grief.

The three D's side-by-side — onset, course, consciousness, attention, memory, and reversibility compared, with the assessment clues that point to each and why delirium is always urgent.

How common conditions present atypically in older adults — MI without chest pain, UTI as confusion, pneumonia without fever, and hyperthyroid apathy — classic vs atypical at a glance.

Normal age-related changes next to the abnormal findings they are mistaken for — by system: cardiac, respiratory, neuro, renal, GI, skin, and sensory — so nurses know what to work up.

Restraint alternatives first — environmental, engagement, and comfort strategies compared with restraint requirements: orders, monitoring frequency, documentation, and release criteria.

Goals, timing, eligibility, concurrent curative treatment, settings, team, and coverage — palliative care and hospice side by side, with the exam traps the distinction generates.

The dying timeline — weeks, days, and hours — with what each sign means (mottling, Cheyne-Stokes, the death rattle) and the nursing response and family explanation for each.

Normal, anticipatory, complicated, and disenfranchised grief compared by definition, recognition cues, and nursing response — plus the honest status of the stages model.

The comfort-kit drugs — morphine, lorazepam, haloperidol, scopolamine/glycopyrrolate, atropine drops — what each treats, routes when swallowing fails, and key nursing points.