Care Plan help please!

[TXnursingstudent36]

I had a patient recently that I am trying to find a second nursing dx for ... she had dementia, so she didn't even know why she was there, but she came in with a dx of UTI and acute renal failure. I already have a nursing dx of impaired memory r/t Central nervous changes secondary to degenerative brain disease as evidenced by Forgetting and inability to recall recent events (borrowed from another site) ... I am stuck however on another nursing diagnosis b/c I need 2 for class. the acute renal failure was said to be most likely secondary to volume depletion. I would like to find a nursing diagnosis that I could use for the volume depletion, I know that since she has dementia she may not remember to drink enough fluid. I was thinking deficient fluid volume. Any help/direction/pointers about how to most efficiently do a nursing care plan would be greatly appreciated - I am having such a difficult time with these things!! Thank you in advance for any help!

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

you're on the right track. why doesn't she drink enough? how do you know? what could you do about that, or ask the nursing aides to help you get accomplished? that should give you your ongoing assessment and interventions.

[xtxrn, ASN, RN]

Agree w/GrnTea :)

You're thinking along the right lines

[Sanuk]

Slightly off topic, but I have a little tip about care plans as I hated them myself. As I went along my first semester, I would save a generic template for each new diagnosis I used (like take name off, dates left blank). By the end of the first semester, I had a basic guideline for all the nursing diagnoses and it only took me about an hour to prep for clinicals after that.