Assessment of Health and Illness Throughout the Lifespan

This course is designed to provide the student with the beginning knowledge and skills needed to assess the health status and the experience of health and illness of individuals from infancy through old age. It is a companion course to the Maintaining and Restoring Health course, which addresses the fundamental concepts necessary to observe and communicate as a nursing professional. Emphasis is on the assessment of physical, developmental, psychosocial (cognitive, affective, and behavioral), cultural, and spiritual dimensions of the client and/or families, as well as factors that influence behavioral responses to health and illness. State of the art laboratory technologies and diverse laboratory experiences provide opportunities to integrate the knowledge and skills necessary for history taking, physical and psychosocial examination, and documentation, as well as provide the necessary means to translate laboratory skills into meaningful clinical encounters in concurrent clinical courses. Attention will be placed on distinguishing normal from abnormal findings related to the physical examination and judging the functional abilities of the client. The course structure id designed to provide students with the ability to evaluate health related situations from a variety of perspectives (personal, client, and health professional) in order to analyze their impact on responses to health and illness. Students will examine their role within the therapeutic nurse-client relationship as they interact with infants, children, adolescents and their families when providing health and illness care. Students will discuss and analyze their experiences in order to better understand the various meanings patients and providers ascribe to health and illness and how these perceptions impact health care.