| PATIENT. Role play. Setting: Home visit. |
| You’re 76 years old and were discharged from the hospital six weeks ago following your hip replacement. A community nurse visits to check on your progress, so you tell him/her about the fatigue and the headache you’ve been experiencing. TASK: When asked, say that you are feeling better and walking is easier now. Say you are feeling tired though, as you’ve been sleeping badly the last few nights. Say that you aren’t anxious or stressed, but your face feels a bit painful and you’ve had a headache for a few days. You had a cold last week and your nose is badly blocked, which is disturbing your sleep. Say that your headache is bad, about a seven out of ten, and feels worse when you lean forward. You don’t have a fever, but you’re eating less as chewing hurts and you’ve lost your sense of taste. Say you’ll do what the nurse has suggested, but you think you need to see a GP. Say you will try the nurse’s suggestions and see a GP if there’s no improvement. |
| Nurse. Role play. Setting: Home visit. |
| You visit a 76-year-old patient to check on his/her progress following hospital discharge six weeks ago after undergoing a right hip replacement. During your visit, the patient reports some symptoms suggestive of sinusitis (fatigue, headache). Tasks: Confirm reason for visit (check-up following right hip replacement). Find out how patient is feeling. Explore possible reasons for patient’s poor sleep (anxiety, stress, pain, etc.). Find out more about patient’s symptoms (severity of headache, if worse when moving, any fever, change in appetite, loss of sense of taste, etc.). Explain symptoms suggest acute sinusitis (inflammation of sinus linings at back of nose). Reassure patient (e.g., condition usually self-resolving, not serious, etc.). Recommend self-help treatments (e.g., high fluid intake to loosen secretions, gentle nose blowing, head elevation when lying down, etc.). Stress needs to see GP only if no improvement in one week (e.g., GP to prescribe appropriate treatment, rule out other conditions, etc.). Stress likely effectiveness of self-help treatments. |