Understanding Residents: Needs, Development, Mental Health, and End-of-Life Care

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering basic human needs, human growth and development, cultural diversity, mental health disorders, and end-of-life care.

Physiological Needs

The basic physical necessities shared by all human beings, which include food, water, protection, shelter, sleep, rest, and comfort (especially freedom from pain).

Psychosocial Needs

Needs that involve social interaction, emotions, intellect, and spirituality, including love and affection, acceptance by others, safety and security, self-reliance, contact with others, and success and self-esteem.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

A model developed by Abraham Maslow arranging human physiological and psychosocial needs in order of importance, stating that physiological needs must be met before psychosocial needs can be fulfilled.

Masturbation

Touching or rubbing sexual organs in order to give oneself or another person sexual pleasure.

Holistic Care

An approach to healthcare that considers the whole person—the mind as well as the body—rather than dividing the system into separate parts.

Person-Centered Care

An approach to care that revolves around the resident and promotes their individual preferences, choices, dignity, and interests.

Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)

Personal care tasks a person does every day to care for themselves, including bathing or showering, dressing, caring for teeth and hair, eliminating, eating and drinking, and moving from place to place.

Cultural Diversity

The variety of people with different backgrounds and experiences living together in the world.

Race

Physical characteristics shared by people with common ancestry.

Ethnicity

A combination of factors that may involve race, culture, nationality, language, and other shared elements.

Dietary Restrictions

Cultural or religious rules concerning what and when followers are permitted to eat and drink.

OBRA Activities Program Mandate

A requirement by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act that facilities provide an activities program designed to meet the interests and the physiological and psychosocial well-being of each resident.

Nuclear Family

A family structure composed of two parents and one or more children.

Extended Family

A family structure that includes parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, other relatives, and even friends.

Blended Family

A family formed when divorced or widowed parents remarry and have children from previous relationships and/or the current marriage.

Human Growth and Development

The physical and psychological changes that all human beings undergo throughout the stages of their lives.

Infancy Cephalocaudal Development

The developmental pattern occurring from birth to $12\,\text{months}$ where physical control develops from the head downward, gaining neck control before shoulder control and trunk control before arm and leg control.

Ageism

Prejudice toward, stereotyping of, and/or discrimination against older persons or the elderly.

Developmental Disabilities

Chronic conditions present at birth or emerging during childhood up to age $22$ that restrict physical and/or mental abilities and prevent a child from developing at a normal rate.

Intellectual Disability

The most common developmental disability, formerly called mental retardation, characterized by below-average mental functioning and a below-average rate of development; it is neither a disease nor a mental health disorder.

Major Depressive Disorder (Clinical Depression)

A mental health illness characterized by a loss of interest in everything a person once cared about, which interferes with the ability to work, sleep, and eat, and causes intense mental, emotional, and physical pain.

Bipolar Disorder

A mental health disorder causing mood swings and changes in energy levels and functioning, swinging from extreme activity (manic episodes) to deep depression (depressive episodes).

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

An anxiety disorder characterized by chronic anxiety and excessive worry about health, finances, work, or other issues, even when there is no apparent reason for concern.

Panic Disorder

An anxiety disorder characterized by regular panic attacks—episodes of intense fear accompanied by physical symptoms like rapid heartbeat, chest pain, and shortness of breath—or chronic worry about having another attack.

Phobia

An intense, irrational fear of or anxiety about a specific object, place, or situation.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

A disorder characterized by intrusive behaviors or recurring thoughts that cause anxiety, compelling a person to perform repetitive actions they feel unable to stop.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

A trauma- and stressor-related disorder caused by experiencing a traumatic event (such as military combat or violent crime), marked by flashbacks, bad dreams, hypervigilance, and avoidance of triggers.

Schizophrenia

A psychotic disorder that affects a person's ability to think and communicate clearly, manage emotions, make decisions, understand reality, and interact socially.

Hallucinations

False or distorted sensory perceptions, such as seeing things that are not really there or hearing conversations that are not real.

Delusions

Persistent false beliefs, such as believing that other people are controlling one's thoughts.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

A type of psychotherapy often used for anxiety and depression that is usually short-term and focuses on skills and solutions to modify negative thinking and behavior patterns.

Terminal Illness

A disease or medical condition that will eventually cause death.

Grief

Deep distress or sorrow over a loss; an adaptive, changing process that typically involves healing.

Kübler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief

The five stages described by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 'On Death and Dying' that dying people and their loved ones may experience: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Advance Directives

Legal documents that allow people to designate the kinds of medical care they wish to receive or appoint a healthcare proxy if they lose the ability to make decisions for themselves.

Living Will

An advance directive that outlines the specific medical care a person wants or does not want while still alive, taking effect if they become unable to make those choices.

Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care

A signed, dated, and witnessed legal document (also called a health care proxy) that appoints someone else to make medical treatment decisions for a person should they become incapacitated.

Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) Order

A medical order instructing healthcare professionals not to attempt emergency CPR if a patient's heartbeat or breathing stops.

Cheyne-Stokes Respirations

A breathing pattern seen in approaching death characterized by alternating periods of slow, irregular respirations and rapid, shallow respirations, combined with short periods of apnea (not breathing).

Rigor Mortis

The temporary stiffness of death where the muscles of the body become stiff and rigid, occurring between $2$ and $6\,\text{hours}$ after death.

Postmortem Care

Care given to the body after death has been officially declared by a nurse or physician.

Hospice Care

Compassionate, holistic care available $24\,\text{hours}$ a day, $7\,\text{days}$ a week with a doctor's order for dying individuals and their families, prioritizing comfort and dignity.

Palliative Care

A type of care given in hospice or to individuals with serious chronic conditions that focuses on pain relief, symptom management, and comfort rather than cure or recovery.