The assessment of a patient allows health practitioners to understand the individual needs of the patients and subsequently provide them with individual-centered care. A variety of domains are explored in the process of assessing patients, including the physical domain. Physical health assessment normally entails a physical examination, taking the medical history, medical review, and pain assessment and advanced care planning. The physical assessment of a healthy older adult will mostly have findings that are different from that of a healthy 35-year old.
An assessment of blood pressure depicts different findings. The systolic blood pressure will be higher in adults aged above 35 as compared to the 35-year olds. The difference can be linked to the stiffening of the aorta and large arteries (Pitchumoni & Dharmarajan, 2012). As the aorta and other large arteries become less distensible with age, a specific stoke volume leads to a greater increase in systolic blood pressure. The 35-year old adult, in this case, could have lower blood pressure because they do not have a widened pulse pressure as compared to the older adult.
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Furthermore, the heart rate and rhythm between the two might have differences. In the older adult, the resting heart rate might remain unchanged while it fluctuates for the 35-year old adult. However, for the older adult, the pacemaker cells might drop in the sinoatrial node, similar to the maximal heart rate, which in turn impacts response to physiologic stress (Pitchumoni & Dharmarajan, 2012). From another point of view, the older-aged adult is more likely to have an abnormal heart rhythm, including ventricular or atrial ectopy. Such is different from the 35-year old who might not experience this abnormality.
Besides, the respiratory rate and temperature between the older and the 35-year old adult might depict differences. While the respiratory rate mainly remains unchanged for both of them, there are high chances that it could be lower for older adults, mainly because they are less active. Additionally, changes in temperature regulation of the adults might lead to higher opportunities of hypothermia for the older adult as compared to the 35-year old.
An assessment of the skin, nails, and hair of the adults can depict a variety of differences that are mainly linked to the age. On the one hand, the older adult’s skin is highly likely to have wrinkles, more lax, and lost turgor as compared to that of the 35-year old adult whose skin will have less wrinkles and thus, tighter. Furthermore, the nails of the older adult will most likely have lost some of its luster, which might cause it to become yellow and thicker as compared to those of the 35-year old adult that will have maintained their luster, as well as their original color. An observation of the hair might reveal that the scalp hair of the older adult might have lost its pigment leading to graying. Additionally, they might have some hair loss on the scalp (Wiltjer & Kendall, 2019). On the other hand, the 35-year old adult’s hair has a high chance of maintaining its pigment. They might not have lost hair on the scalp.
The head might also indicate some differences between the older adult and the 35-year old one. The fat cushioning the eyes within the bony part may weaken on the part of the older adult. As such, they might have receding eyeballs. Additionally, the older adult’s eyelid skin might be wrinkled and loose as compared to the tighter, one of the 35-year old adults (Pitchumoni & Dharmarajan, 2012). Besides, the older adult’s teeth might wear down, causing the lower part of the head and face to look smaller and sunken as compared to the normally shaped head of the 35-year old adult.
References
Pitchumoni, C., & Dharmarajan, T. (2012). Geriatric Gastroenterology. Springer Science & Business Media.
Wiltjer, H., & Kendall, N. (2019). Assessment of older people 2: assessing the physical domain. Nursing Times , 40-44.
