NRNP 6547 Week 3 Functional Assessment Example

Course	NRNP 6547 The Aging Experience
Week	Week 3
Paper type	Functional assessment write-up
Length	About 800 words, 5 pages
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Walden University
Program	Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for NRNP 6547 Week 3

Functional Assessment of a 79-Year-Old Woman: What the Instruments Measured, What She Reported, and Where They Disagree

Student Name

College of Nursing, Walden University

NRNP 6547: The Aging Experience

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What this page is doingThe title sets the scored and reported accounts side by side and names the disagreement between them as the point of interest. A functional assessment that reported only the scores, or only her account, would miss what each one cannot see.

Functional Assessment of a 79-Year-Old Woman: What the Instruments Measured, What She Reported, and Where They Disagree

The Person and the Household

The older adult in this write-up is invented for teaching: a 79-year-old retired bank teller, called G. here, who lives with her husband, 82, in a two-story house where the only bathroom and both bedrooms are upstairs. She has osteoarthritis of both knees and her hands and was treated for atrial fibrillation last year. She completed the scored measures in her kitchen and described the same activities in her own words.

Scored Section

Basic self-care on the Katz index: 5 of 6 (Katz et al., 1963). Independent in bathing, toileting, transferring, continence, and feeding; scored dependent in dressing because she received help with fastening her clothing.

Lawton instrumental activities of daily living scale: 6 of 8 (Lawton & Brody, 1969). Independent in telephone use, shopping, food preparation, housekeeping, laundry, and managing medications; not independent in transportation, since she no longer drives, or in finances, which her husband manages.

Timed Up and Go: 15 seconds, with a slow rise from the chair using both armrests (Podsiadlo & Richardson, 1991).

Short Physical Performance Battery: 7 of 12, reflecting a balance score of 3, a gait speed score of 3, and a chair stand score of 1, since five chair rises without using her arms took more than 16 seconds (Guralnik et al., 1994). Interpretation: moderate lower extremity limitation.

Stair climb, timed: 14 stairs in 38 seconds, with two pauses, using the handrail with her right hand throughout.

Reported Section

In her words: "I get up and down those stairs every day, a dozen times. It's manageable. I take my time." On dressing: "I don't bother with buttons anymore, my fingers won't do them, so my husband does the back of my dress on Sundays and the rest of the week I wear pullovers." On a bad day: "When the weather turns, my knees swell and I stay upstairs till lunch." On a good day: "I can do the grocery list, cook dinner, and walk to the mailbox and back."

Where the Two Accounts Disagree

Stairs appear in both accounts and do not match. She calls them manageable; the timed stair climb and her chair stand score suggest that her leg strength is near the limit of what the stairs demand, and two pauses on 14 steps are not trivial. Both statements are true. Manageable, in her meaning, is that she does it every day without asking for help; the measure shows the margin is thin. Neither is printed as the correct one.

The dressing item scores low for a reason the instrument cannot see. The Katz index records that she receives help, but it cannot see that she has adapted by switching to pullovers six days a week, so the help is limited to one garment on one day. The score describes dependence; her account describes an adaptation that preserves independence most of the week.

What this page is doingPrinting both accounts before weighing them is what the assessment rewards. The stair discrepancy is resolved by showing that the two statements measure different things, and the dressing item shows a limitation of the instrument rather than of the person.

Environment

The staircase has a handrail on the right side going up only, so on the way down it is on her left, and her left hand is the more arthritic. That single feature changes what her stair score means: she is slower descending not only because of her knees but because she is holding the rail with her weaker hand. The upstairs bathroom has no grab bars. The kitchen, where she spends most of the day, is on the ground floor. Lawton and Nahemow (1973) described function as the fit between a person's competence and the demands of the environment; the same legs perform differently on a staircase with rails on both sides.

Function as a Range

Her function is better described as a range than a single number. On her best days she shops from a list, cooks, and walks to the mailbox; on her worst days, when her knees swell, she stays upstairs until noon and depends on her husband to bring breakfast. The scores above were obtained on what she called an average day. A second handrail, a bathroom grab bar, and her own adaptations would widen the good end of the range; a fall on the stairs could collapse it.

What This Means for the People Around Her

For her husband, who is 82 and managing his own health, the stairs are also a question about his future, since he helps her on the worst days. For a clinician reading the scores alone, she might look like a candidate for a move to a single-floor home; read with her account, she looks like a woman who has adapted well and could stay where she is with modest changes to the house. Both readings should be offered to her, and the decision is hers to make.

References

Guralnik, J. M., Simonsick, E. M., Ferrucci, L., Glynn, R. J., Berkman, L. F., Blazer, D. G., Scherr, P. A., & Wallace, R. B. (1994). A short physical performance battery assessing lower extremity function: Association with self-reported disability and prediction of mortality and nursing home admission. Journal of Gerontology, 49(2), M85-M94. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronj/49.2.M85

Katz, S., Ford, A. B., Moskowitz, R. W., Jackson, B. A., & Jaffe, M. W. (1963). Studies of illness in the aged: The index of ADL: A standardized measure of biological and psychosocial function. JAMA, 185(12), 914-919. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1963.03060120024016

Lawton, M. P., & Brody, E. M. (1969). Assessment of older people: Self-maintaining and instrumental activities of daily living. The Gerontologist, 9(3), 179-186. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/9.3_Part_1.179

Lawton, M. P., & Nahemow, L. (1973). Ecology and the aging process. In C. Eisdorfer & M. P. Lawton (Eds.), The psychology of adult development and aging (pp. 619-674). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10044-020

Podsiadlo, D., & Richardson, S. (1991). The timed "Up & Go": A test of basic functional mobility for frail elderly persons. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 39(2), 142-148. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-5415.1991.tb01616.x

Reading the NRNP 6547 Week 3 instructions

The third week of NRNP 6547 usually wants an older adult's function measured with standard scales, written up with interpretation. You administer or apply tools such as the Katz ADL and Lawton IADL scales, record the person's own account, compare the two, assess the environment and discuss what the results mean. Faculty grade interpretation over reporting. Cite instrument sources in APA 7. Disagreement between scores and self-report should be explored. Household and caregiver factors belong in the discussion. Function may vary by day, and the write-up should say so. NRNP 6547 faculty want each instrument named with its score and the items she needed help with. Record her account in her words. Explain why the two might differ. Describe the house, especially the stairs and bathroom. Discuss how function varies across her week.

How this NRNP 6547 Week 3 example is built

The write-up carries a scored section with named instruments, item level results and totals, and a reported section drawn from the person's own account of the same activities. Stairs appear in both and do not match: the account calls them manageable, the timed measure suggests otherwise, and both statements are printed before either is weighed. The environment gets its own short block, because a handrail on one side only changes what a score means. A dressing item scores low for a reason the account explains and the instrument cannot see. The write-up closes on function as a range rather than a number, naming the best and worst days described. The older adult and the household are invented for teaching.

Where the marks sit in the NRNP 6547 Week 3 rubric

The row students most often lose asks for interpretation rather than reporting, and a write-up that lists scores and then restates them in prose has reported twice. The example interprets by making the mismatches the subject. A second row expects instruments to be named and used correctly, including the date and the conditions of administration, which is cheap to include and frequently forgotten. Points also go when the account is treated as unreliable simply because it conflicts with a number, since an older adult describing their own stairs has information no measure holds. The opposite error costs the same: an account accepted wholesale with the scores mentioned once. Where the rubric asks for environment, a general sentence about home safety earns far less than a specific feature named.

NRNP 6547 Week 3 help from the desk

Functional write-ups lose credit when scores are listed and then restated in prose. Interpret what they mean for her life. Another common gap is ignoring disagreement between the scale and her account. Explain it. Writers also skip the environment, though stairs to the only bathroom matter more than a score. Assess the home. Avoid treating one day's performance as fixed. Describe the range. Include her husband's role and health. Close with what the findings mean for support. Writers also forget the husband's own health, which affects how long the current arrangement can last. Ask about it. Another frequent slip is treating a single score as permanent. Note good and bad days. Keep scores consistent across sections. Close with supports that fit the house.

Get a NRNP 6547 Week 3 example written to your instructions

Send the Week 3 prompt with the rubric and the instruments your section works from, and the desk builds a write-up around those measures and a described day. Free on your first request, back within 24-48 hours. Assessments you performed on a real person stay in your own record and are not rebuilt in the sample.

More NRNP 6547 papers and MSN samples

NRNP 6547 Week 3 questions, answered

Can I send my own scored assessment for write-up?

Scores you obtained from a real older adult belong to your own clinical file, and nothing produced here is built on them. Tell us the instruments involved and the general shape of the finding, and the sample is built on composite results of a similar pattern. You get a model of how scores and an account are set against each other without your own data leaving your hands.

Which instruments does the example use?

It names commonly taught measures of daily and instrumental activities, cites them at first use, and reports at item level rather than by total alone. Sections differ in what they require, and the write-up is structured so a substitution changes the numbers and citations without disturbing the argument. Whatever your prompt names is what the desk will build on.

What if the scores and the account disagree?

That disagreement is usually the assignment. The example prints both, gives each the same three sentence treatment, and states what further information would settle each case. Graders reward a writer who can hold a measured result and a lived account in the same document far more than one who quietly discards whichever source is less convenient.

Where can I find a free NRNP 6547 Week 3 sample paper?

G.'s functional assessment is shown here with the scored and reported sections, where they disagree, the environment and function as a range.

Where are the bathroom and bedrooms in NRNP 6547 Week 3?

Upstairs in a two-story house, which shapes how her function is read beside the Katz and Lawton scores.