Paper Example on Tom Walker: A Mental Illness Care Plan

Introduction

One of the characters that I choose is Tom Walker; he is a mental patient who had been experiencing traumatic events from his childhood, which haunts him (Ferreira, 2018). The events are established when he speaks to a psychiatrist; he asserts that he sees things that do not exist in real life. I will develop a nursing care plan to help treat his mental illness.

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Assessment Questions

• Does it seem that other people are commenting on your behavior?
• How often have you been seeing visions?
• Have you been experiencing things that you think others do not notice?
• Have you been experiencing bad tastes lately?

Nursing Diagnoses/DSM-5 Diagnoses

Disturbed Though Process

Tom usually experiences disturbed perceptions and delusions that affects his thought process. Related factors for his mental condition include the panic level of anxiety, stress, inadequate support systems, and traumatic events (Martin, 2016). Defining characteristics that can serve as evidence are hallucinations, non-reality based thinking, and delusions.

Impaired Social Interaction

Tom is increasingly socially isolated; he is even trapped in the house immediately he was released from the mental institution. Related factors include inadequate emotional responses, feelings of being threatened in social situations, and self-concept disturbance. Defining characteristics; Tom spends time alone by themself and looks anxious when others are closer.

Desired Outcomes

Tom Walker will maintain social relationships, monitor the intensity of his anxiety, identify stressful events that trigger hallucinations, identify best interventions that he can use to decrease the frequency of delusions and hallucinations, and also state that he is comfortable with at least three structured goal-oriented activities.

Nursing Interventions

Identifying with Tom the symptoms he experiences and the time he begins to feel anxious (Martin, 2016). Rationale; this helps to evaluate the level of anxiety, for instance, increased anxiety could imply aggressiveness, agitation, or suspiciousness.

Ensuring that goals set for the client are realistic. Rationale; as a nurse, it is important to avoid any pressure on the patient because a sense of failure is likely to result in mutual withdrawal.

Providing opportunities for the client to learn social skills; initial social skills could include social behaviors such as maintaining eye contact, learning to behave in a calm manner, to mention but a few (Martin, 2016). Rationale; social skills improve the client's social skills hence making him friendly to interact with the rest of the people in society and at the same time, increase his quality of life.

References

Ferreira, G. (2018). Delirium: From the depths of mania. Retrieved from: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1214337/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Martin, P. (2016). 6 Schizophrenia Nursing Care plans. Nurses labs. Retrieved from: https://nurseslabs.com/schizophrenia-nursing-care-plans/#disturbed-thought-process