Spacer Teaching Project

Spacer Teaching Project

School of Nursing

Spacer Teaching Project

Adults in need of healthcare education need to be taught in ways in which they will retain the information and be able to use it in their lives to promote wellness. This involves keeping the information specific to each person and ensuring that the information is presented in an easily understood manner. It also involves incorporating available resources into the teaching as well as presenting the information in an interesting manner with various media. All of these aspects were considered in the planning of the teaching project and contributed to successful client learning.

After a discussion with the client, who suffered from asthma, about her medications, it was determined that she did not use a spacer with her inhaler or know its purpose. In addition, the client said that she did not keep an inhaler with her at all times. The last time that she had an asthma attack, she was away from home and had to get a friend to go to her home and get her inhaler for her. All of this information made it apparent that the patient did not understand the importance of her inhaler or spacer and that she would benefit from education related to these topics in order to not only increase her awareness and knowledge, but also her medication compliance.

The level of prevention for this project was tertiary prevention. According to Lundy and Janes (2003), tertiary prevention is aimed at the rehabilitation of a client with a chronic condition and "restoring the client to an optimal level of functioning". The client suffered from asthma, a chronic condition, and used her inhaler whenever she had an asthma attack. The inhaler and spacer were not used to cure her asthma. The inhaler and spacer were critical for the client to have during an asthma attack to help reverse the airway obstruction and allow the client to return to her optimal level of functioning so it was imperative to aim the teaching towards these concepts.

The prevention discussed with this teaching project relates to Healthy People 2010. Healthy People 2010 lists objectives for the nation with goals of "increasing quality and years of healthy life" and "eliminate health disparities" (Healthy People 2010). Respiratory disease (#24) was the major area focused upon with the teaching project (Healthy People 2010). The client suffered from asthma attacks about once a month, did not keep her inhaler with her at all times, and did not know how or why to use a spacer with her inhaler. Disability and secondary conditions (#6) was another area that was discussed (Healthy People 2010). The client needed to understand what could happen if she did have her inhaler with her at the time of an attack or if the medication was not being utilized to its highest level of effectiveness to help reinforce the importance of her inhaler and spacer. These two objectives were utilized during the teaching project and helped to identify areas in which the client required education.

It is important when formulating and before implementing a teaching project to identify the intended goals and outcomes for teaching. The goal of the project was to increase the client's knowledge about the use of her inhaler and spacer. The intended outcome of this project was to have the client verbalize an understanding of the importance of using her inhaler and spacer. The client must complete learning objectives for the teaching to be a success. The client needed to view a demonstration of the correct way to use the inhaler and spacer in order to benefit from the drug as much as possible (Ignatavicius & Workman, 2002). After the teaching session was complete it was imperative to assess the learning objectives and to have the client demonstrate how to use the inhaler and spacer correctly as well as explain the importance of these devices in relation to her asthma.

An important aspect to successful adult learning is to discuss the teaching session with the client in order to determine the best method for optimal learning (Potter & Perry, 2005). After a discussion with the client, it was determined that she was mostly a visual learner because she said that she had a hard time focusing on information provided to her verbally. It seemed that the client would benefit most from a brochure with various pictures that demonstrated each step to use a spacer. In addition, the teacher would perform a demonstration for the client to view in order to help reinforce the information. These methods appealed to the learner's interest and aided in client education.

In order to provide effective teaching, it is important to understand and incorporate the three domains of learning. The first domain, cognitive learning, involves a person's ability to learn new information and be able to remember that information (Potter & Perry, 2005). The client's cognitive learning was assessed by asking her to explain the importance and reasoning

...