Role Conflict and Decision Making, Essay Example

There was a time when I volunteered to sit with an elderly neighbor while her usual caregiver was away. With this responsibility, I was given the task of making sure the neighbor took all of her medications, as prescribed. There was a time when it was time for her blood pressure medication and I noticed that she seemed unusually tired. She was sleeping too much and she did not seem to have much energy. I asked her how she felt and she said that she felt tired and “slow” because she said she felt like she was moving in slow motion. It came to mind to take her blood pressure, so I used the home blood pressure monitor they had in her room and took her blood pressure, which turned out to be already low at 86/62. This was when I made the decision not to give her the blood pressure pill and I called her doctor, who stated that it was ok to do that, but that she needed to make an appointment for a checkup. This was a decision that was a bit difficult because I was supposed to give her the medicines as prescribed at the correct times, because blood pressure medicines are meant to help a hypertensive patient maintain a stable blood pressure to reduce the risks of stroke and heart failure (Chen & et. al, 2013). I just felt that giving her the blood pressure medicine would drop her blood pressure even lower. The thing I would have done differently is ask her caregiver if there was ever any time when she did not respond well to her medications or if any of them could be taken on an as-needed basis, although blood pressure medications are supposed to be taken everyday. It turned out that she had some other underlying problem that was making her blood pressure low that day, which was an issue with her thyroid.

References

Chen, Q., & et. al. (2013, Dec). Association between Ambient Temperature and Blood Pressure and Blood Pressure Regulators: 1831 Hypertensive Patients Followed Up for Three Years. PLoS ONE, 8(12), 1-7.

Hillaire, M. L., & Woods, T. M. (2013, Feb). Type 2 diabetes: A focus on new guidelines. Formulary, 48(2), 55-67.