HSCO502 Week7 Case Of Elderly Couple

HSCO502 Week7 Case Of Elderly Couple

HSCO502 Week7 Case Of Elderly Couple

Read the Case Study below and then answer the following questions:

1. Consider Lydia’s and John’s cognitive and physical limitations as well as their social support. If you were presenting this case to a team of other human services providers, what developmental theories, concepts, and principles help explain this case? (Use the readings from Modules/Weeks 7–8 to help you answer this question).
2. What other information might you need to fully evaluate the situation in which Lydia and John live?
3. If you were the protective service worker, what are the options for this couple? Identify several feasible plans with explanation and support from a source of information. Include the risks and benefits of each option. Then, identify what your final recommendation would be and why.

Case Study

Lydia and John were a couple in their nineties who lived in their own home and had been married over sixty years. Both were confused and forgetful. They had two sons who were in their seventies and lived in nearby towns. One son was estranged from them. The other was somewhat involved in their lives, but he had a mentally ill wife and health problems of his own to deal with. The couple first came to the attention of a protective service worker when John was hospitalized after a fall. When left on her own, Lydia’s confusion became more pronounced. A referral was made for home care services, but, when a worker went out to assess the couple, their son was present and refused services. Based on concerns of benign neglect, a protective services report was issued. A case worker investigated and substantiated the report, citing the son’s interference with services and the couple’s own inability to provide adequate care for each other. The protective services worker found both John and Lydia to be very forgetful and somewhat confused, though Lydia was the more impaired. Due to their increased physical frailty, they had been using only the first floor of their home. Since the bedrooms and bathroom were upstairs, the living arrangement presented several problems for the couple. Lydia had a regular bed, but John was sleeping on a cot. The low height of the cot caused him to lose his balance easily, resulting in several falls. Since there was no toilet downstairs, they were using a bucket in the kitchen and emptying it outside. They were unable to maintain their home and conditions became unsanitary. The son tried to help, but he had his own limitations. The elderly couple was well able to afford assistance, but they did not want to spend the money. Furthermore, even though the son who helped with paying the bills was not taking advantage of his parents financially, he was obviously concerned with “preserving his inheritance.” Meanwhile, John and Lydia were extremely conservative in terms of how they chose to spend their money; they insisted they could not afford help.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

• The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

• Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
• Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
• One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
• I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

• Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
• In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
• Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
• Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

• Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
• Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
• I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

• I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
• As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
• It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

 

LopesWrite Policy

• For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
• Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
• Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
• Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

• The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
• Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
• If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
• I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
• As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

• Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: 
  • Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
  • Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.