11.Give an example of how each of the following
factors may influence the amount and quality
of stimuli needed to maintain cortical arousal.
a.Developmental considerations:b.Culture and lifestyle:c. Personality:d.Stress:e.Illness and medication:12.Explain how you might assess a patient for
the following sensory experiences.
a.Stimulation:b.Reception:c. Transmission–perception–reaction:13.Give three examples of how a nurse might
communicate with the following patients.
a.Visually impaired patients:b.Hearing-impaired patients:c. Unconscious patients:APPLYING YOUR KNOWLEDGE
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS
1.Test your friends’ senses by trying out these
tactile, gustatory, and olfactory exercises.
a.Gather several items from your home/work
area and place them in a paper bag. These
items could include things such as a key, a
cotton ball, a toothpick, a tongue depressor,
and so on. Have your friends take turns feel-
ing the objects in the bag and guessing whatthey are without looking at them. As an
item is identified, remove it from the bag.
Discuss the importance of tactile experiences
to the vision-impaired patient.
b.Gather several foods for your friends to
taste and identify. You could use pudding,
gelatin, mints, chocolate, and so on. Blind-
fold your friends and give them a taste of
each food. See how many they can identify
correctly.
c.Gather items with a pungent odor for your
friends to smell and identify. You could use
alcohol, lemon juice, pickle juice, cinnamon,
mint, and so on. See how many odors they
can identify correctly.
Reflect on the role different senses play.
Do you believe using only one sense at a time
heightens the awareness of that sense? Relate
the exercises above to the special needs of
hearing-impaired and vision-impaired
patients.
2.Walk down a busy street in a city and try to
pick out individual noises. How many noises
were you able to identify? How many noises
became indistinct due to sensory overload?
Relate this experience to a patient in a critical
care unit.REFLECTIVE PRACTICE USING CRITICAL
THINKING SKILLS
Use the following expanded scenario from
Chapter 44 in your textbook to answer the
questions below.
Scenario:Dolores Pirolla, age 74, comes to
the older adult clinic with her 77-year-old hus-
band, who was diagnosed with macular degen-
eration and progressive vision loss. She says,
“Now I’ve noticed he’s also having difficulty
hearing me. I’m worried because he doesn’t
want to leave the house. We hardly see any of
our friends anymore. We used to go out to the
movies or dinner at least once a week, and
lately if we get out once a month, that’s a lot!”
Mrs. Pirolla also expresses concerns about her
husband’s safety when moving about the
house and neighborhood.
1.What nursing interventions might be appropri-
ate for Mr. Pirolla?CHAPTER 44 SENSORY FUNCTIONING 309
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