growth and development care plan goal

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Hi, the patient I had was six years old and dx with Cornelius de Lange syndrome. She is, developmentally, around 12 months old. I know I need to word the interventions appropriately to a 12 mos old, but what exactly should the goal be? She can't function as a six year old, so I can't say she should have increased age-appropriate behavior. I am really at a loss on this one. Thanks:o

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If she is developmentally 12 months old, then just tailor the G&D goals to that of a 12-month-old?? Maybe I'm being too simplistic, just a thought :)

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No. I've started working on it, and I think I was trying to overthink the goals. Thanks.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

Are you meaning Cornelia de Lange syndrome? These kids have a lot of GI and feeding problems and they are mentally retarded which comes with behavioral problems. What are the symptoms you are basing your nursing diagnoses on? Since goals are going to be the predicted results of your nursing interventions it would be extremely helpful if you would tell us what your nursing diagnosis(es) and nursing interventions are. Delayed Growth and Development? Imbalanced Nutrition: less than body requirements? Risk for Aspiration? Disturbed Sensory Perception, Auditory and Visual? Impaired Physical Mobility?

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yes, Cornelia. I would really like to work on the dx of Delayed Growth and Development. Some interventions would be to provide age appropriate toys and interactions. Do you know a lot about this condition? The patient was very much infantile, even though she's six years old. Is that a common finding with these patients?

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

i don't know a thing about this condition, but i know lots about how to write a care plan. "find age appropriate toys and interactions" is not a specific enough intervention for this care plan. your instructor will probably ding you for not making this care plan customized and tailored to the needs of the patient. your interventions need to be based on your assessment of the patient. you said she had the mental age of 12 months. this is a list of the developmental milestones for a 12-month old from the university of maryland medical center health library: http://www.umm.edu/ency/article/002005.htm. how does your patient match up against them? you can access other age milestones in their library (http://www.umm.edu/ency/article/002348.htm). the expectations listed on these pages are some of the goals you can use for your care plan--just move up to the next milestone. i've also given you the weblink to the cornelia de lange foundation, inc. and there is caregiver information on their site.

when doing a care plan, one of the first things you need to do is look up information about the patient's medical disease. you need to compare the textbook signs and symptoms with what you observed in the patient. you may have inadvertently missed one or more of them. you also need to know the underlying pathophysiology for some of the related factors (r/t part) of your nursing diagnostic statements. since this is a lesser known disease you won't find a care plan for this in any care plan books. so, you will need to make a list of all the abnormal assessment data you collected on this little patient. that list becomes the basis for the nursing diagnoses you will eventually choose. these websites have information about cornelia de lange syndrome:

there are other pediatric weblinks that include developmental milestone information on them here: https://allnurses.com/nursing-student-assistance/medical-disease-information-258109.html - medical disease information/treatment/procedures/test reference websites

for specific information on how to write a goal statement see post #157 on https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-student/careplans-help-please-121128.html

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