Instrumentos de avaliação geriátrica utilizados pelo enfermeiro : revisão integrativa da literatura

Abstract

The elderly person undergoes the process of senescence and senility, with senescence being described as a physiological process, and senility being a pathological process such as neurocognitive disorders, formerly called dementia disorders, which have been taking an important role in the country's health. In this perspective, the objective was to verify the scientific production on the use of geriatric assessment instruments with a focus on cognition and the participation of nurses in this process. It is an integrative review of the literature carried out in electronic databases. The flow diagram was adapted from the PRISMA Group recommendation. It was observed that the most used assessment instruments were the MMSE that appears in 7 (seven) of the 8 (eight) articles (90%) and the Index Katz. Although nurses were part of the research, most of them were directed only to investigate the aspects of cognition and functional capacity of the elderly in a punctual way as research, without, however, considering in the investigation the question of the importance of these assessments being carried out in the daily care of professional. This study reveals, based on the selected researches, that the nurse, even transiting in the gerontogeriatric area, has not shown to apply geriatric evaluation instruments in their daily care practice; but, only in research.