Family Assessment Term Paper

Family Assessment and Nursing

Professional nursing practice supports the need to conduct family assessment endeavors for pediatrics to geriatrics. Family assessments, regardless of the specificity of an individual's development, is a viable clinical tool to guide the nurse in the process of identifying the strengths and needs of the individual to whom care is extended. The remainder of this written assignment will focus on two separate situations wherein family assessment is invaluable. The first article (Bower, et al., 2002) speaks of Alzheimer's disease and the second article (Cuenco, et al. 2004) relates to the importance of cultural diversity and family assessment

With Alzheimer's disease the family is an extremely pivotal link to all levels of diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis as well as in determining a care approach.The authors clearly point out the necessity interviewing family members with respect to the patient's past and current personality. The importance to this writer is in knowing that non-invasive assessment in terms of the importance of family history, relationship patterns, mood disorders, depression, and subtle changes of behavior….....