Introduction:

Cardiovascular disorders or CVD is found to be the leading cause of death as well as a disease burden in the nation of Australia. The Department of health, Australia has stated that the number of people living with the condition is increasing (Davis et al., 2015). This increase is mainly due to the factors that include ageing of the population as well as improved treatment that are making people live longer with CVD. Therefore, it becomes important for healthcare professionals to take up preventive strategies by which they can control the disorder than using curative services for handling the disorder in older patients. This would help in saving huge resources without impacting the economy of the nation. Therefore, this assignment would mainly act as a justification assignment which would include the rationale of selecting this health risk among the old aged population. It will also show the important points that the nursing professionals in the community service settings should take in consideration so that they can make the strategies successful.

Why CVD is an emerging health issue?

Cardiovascular disorders are considered to be the highest contributors to the disease burden in the nation of Australia which is followed by dementia and that of COPD disorder. This is especially a growing concern for the aged individuals who remain at the higher risk for the development of the disorder. Reports provided by the Heart Foundation shows that about 490000 hospitalisation had taken place in the year 2014 to 2015 and the number had increased by a percentage of 8% from 2004-2005 to 2014-2015 (Sparling et al., 2015). Reports by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare had found that the percentage of being affected by the disorder is 35% from the cohorts of the age 55-64 which increased to 64% among people aged 75 years and above. Therefore, people of the older age cohort are more prone to this disorder. Therefore, it has become one of the most important health issues that need to be taken care of.

Why do nurses in the home care setting need to know about the health risk?

Cardiovascular disorders are mainly seen to occur due to the contributions of more number of modifiable risk factors among old patients than in comparison to the contribution of the non-modifiable risk factors. If the risk factors can be appropriately handled and lifestyle management are done properly, the risk of development of this health disorder would invariably reduce. Nursing professionals should aim in reducing the suffering of the patients and ensuring them a fitter life and healthy ageing strategies (vanRiet et al., 2016). These would help them to manage the modifiable risk factors and accordingly protect them from the grasps of such chronic disorders. Illness associated with CVD has a significant impact on the Australian economy. This is mainly because of the direct financial costs associated with the health system and this system includes higher healthcare costs as well as higher demand on the healthcare services (Bonder et al., 2017). These services include specialists, allied health professionals, general practitioners, pharmaceuticals, administration and many others. Indirect costs are also seen to be associated with the disorders like that of the productivity losses as well as the costs of the caregivers. Welfare payments, forgone taxation revenue and different other costs like that of the healthcare aids, equipment transport, accommodations, respites and other governmental programs are the indirect costs associated with this disorder (Ding et al., 2015). Healthcare expenditure faced by the patient and the families and the healthcare resources spent by the organisations can easily be saved if the healthcare professionals providing service in the home- community settings can undertake effective preventive measures and help in managing the disease burden of the nation.

What do nurses in a community home care setting need to know?

Nurses in the community health setting should first need to know the urgency of the situation in order to understand how the health issue is affecting the health of the older population and is affecting the economy of the nation. Then only, nurses will be able to develop appropriate interventions for tackling the situations. The nurses first need to know the statistics to develop an idea about the aspect of the emerging health issue (Bauman et al., 2016). Following this aspect, the second criterion that the nurses need to know to tackle the disorder is to develop knowledge about modifiable risk factors which contribute to the disorder and poor health condition of the patients (Winter et al., 2014). This will help in developing ideas about how each of the risk factors causes cardiovascular disorders and how such risk factors need to be handled with development of health literacy and effective health behaviour change. Moreover, it is also significant that nurses should developed detailed idea about the interventions like changes in food, physical activity, smoking, and drinking and other factors. These would help them to advise and educate the patients and thereby ensure best health of the patients. Moreover, effective screening sessions should be conducted and people should be also made to know about the important of undertaking diagnostics tests from time to time with regular monthly check-ups (Petite et al., 2015). All these interventions would help in reducing the disease burden of the nation making the nation a healthier one.

How the poster will help the nurses?

The poster will be helping in developing a systematic procedure of developing knowledge about the health risk of the patients of the older cohort. It will help me to visualise the disease burden and understand the urgency. Following that they would be able to understand the contributing factors (Khan et al., 2015). Therefore, this would be helping in understanding that arenas that patients should be made careful about. Then they would learn about the interventions for preventative management and patient education (Stamatakis et al., 2015). This poster would be an interesting image containing medium of developing knowledge. This aspect would help in easy understanding of the situation and also help them to strategise their caring procedures.

Conclusion:

From the above discussion, it becomes clear that cardiovascular disorder is one of the most important health risks in the nation of Australia especially among the cohort of the older population. It is increasing the disease burden impacting the health economy of the nation. It is important for professionals to make people aware of the consequences of the disorder and provide preventive interventions. The healthcare workers need to identify the risk factors and develop detailed knowledge about them. These would help them in managing the risk factors in patients and also educating patients to be able to take proper self care. Moreover, it is also important for the nursing professionals to undertake screening programs to identify the venerable population who can develop the disorders. Therefore, the poster which is represented gives a clear idea about the every important aspect that community nursing professionals need to develop in order to ensure high-quality care of the patients. This approach of the professionals would be helping the nation to control the prevalence of the disorder in the older generation and ensure better growth in the economypolicy and more quality health of the older population.

References:

1. Bauman, A., Merom, D., Bull, F. C., Buchner, D. M., & Fiatarone Singh, M. A. (2016). Updating the evidence for physical activity: summative reviews of the epidemiological evidence, prevalence, and interventions to promote “active aging”. The Gerontologist, 56(Suppl_2), S268-S280. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnw031
2. Bonder, B. R., & Dal Bello-Haas, V. (2017). Functional performance in older adults. FA Davis. https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=sZtBDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=cardiovascular+disorders+in+old+people+in+australia&ots=lbwcI11IzR&sig=MnTgbvOIDddCe37-Fk5U0v1IQ74#v=onepage&q=cardiovascular%20disorders%20in%20old%20people%20in%20australia&f=false
3. Davis, C. R., Bryan, J., Hodgson, J. M., Wilson, C., Dhillon, V., & Murphy, K. J. (2015). A randomised controlled intervention trial evaluating the efficacy of an Australianised Mediterranean diet compared to the habitual Australian diet on cognitive function, psychological wellbeing and cardiovascular health in healthy older adults (MedLey study): Protocol paper. BMC Nutrition, 1(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40795-015-0033-7
4. Ding, D., Rogers, K., van der Ploeg, H., Stamatakis, E., & Bauman, A. E. (2015). Traditional and emerging lifestyle risk behaviors and all-cause mortality in middle-aged and older adults: evidence from a large population-based Australian cohort. PLoS medicine, 12(12), e1001917.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001917
5. Khan, B., Nowson, C. A., Daly, R. M., English, D. R., Hodge, A. M., Giles, G. G., & Ebeling, P. R. (2015). Higher dietary calcium intakes are associated with reduced risks of fractures, cardiovascular events, and mortality: a prospective cohort study of older men and women. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 30(10), 1758-1766. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.2515
6. Petitte, T., Mallow, J., Barnes, E., Petrone, A., Barr, T., & Theeke, L. (2015). A systematic review of loneliness and common chronic physical conditions in adults. The open psychology journal, 8(Suppl 2), 113. doi: 10.2174/1874350101508010113
7. Sparling, P. B., Howard, B. J., Dunstan, D. W., & Owen, N. (2015). Recommendations for physical activity in older adults. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 350. 0 doi: 10.1136/bmj.h100
8. Stamatakis, E., Rogers, K., Ding, D., Berrigan, D., Chau, J., Hamer, M., & Bauman, A. (2015). All-cause mortality effects of replacing sedentary time with physical development activity and sleeping using an isotemporal substitution model: a prospective study of 201,129 mid-aged and older adults. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 12(1), 121. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-015-0280-7
9. van Riet, E. E., Hoes, A. W., Wagenaar, K. P., Limburg, A., Landman, M. A., & Rutten, F. H. (2016). Epidemiology of heart failure: the prevalence of heart failure and ventricular dysfunction in older adults over time. A systematic review. European journal of heart failure, 18(3), 242-252. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejhf.483
10. Winter, J. E., MacInnis, R. J., Wattanapenpaiboon, N., & Nowson, C. A. (2014). BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults: a meta-analysis–. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 99(4), 875-890. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.113.068