Larry Garcia Patient Education Plan

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Larry Garcia 1 Running Header: Patient Education Plan Larry Garcia: A Patient’s Education Plan Kristi Decker November 13, 2011 University of Phoenix Larry Garcia 2 Larry Garcia is a 45 year old Hispanic male, who has been recently diagnosed with hypertension. He currently has no other past medical history and takes no medications. He is slightly overweight, is a nonsmoker and drink socially on the weekends. This diagnosis is going to be a life changing event for Mr. Garcia. He is aware of what hypertension is, as his mother also has this illness. However she is noncompliant with her treatment. The following will detail am educational…show more content…
In uncomplicated stage I hypertension, dietary changes can serve as initial treatment. Mr. Garcia is instructed to reduce alcohol consumption, decrease his salt intake, and follow the DASH diet (dietary approach to stop hypertension). The plan consists of a diet rich in fruits, vegables, low fat dairy, and reduced fat and cholesterol. Clinical research has shown the DASH diet to have a reduction in the need for hypertension medication (Appel, Brands & Daniels, 2006). Alcohol reduction is key in controlling blood pressure. Studying’s have shown that if a person drinks more than two alcoholic drink per day, their blood pressure can increase. Mr. Garcia admits to being a social drinker, drinking mainly on the weekends. He has been advised to drink no more than two drinks. By limiting his alcohol, he can help to reduce his blood pressure (Appell,…show more content…
Stress does not help blood pressure, when the body feels stress, the blood pressure will rise. This can be seen in “white coat syndrome”, which is where patients have high blood pressure when seen in the doctor’s office, but their blood pressure is fine at other times (Rigsby, 2011). Finding different ways to reduce his stress level will be important for Mr. Garcia’s treatment plan. Mr. Garcia has been advised to explorer many different options until he finds what fits his lifestyle best. Some suggestions that have been made are: deep breathing, meditation and listening to music can help relax you. Mr. Garcia needs to listen to his body, when he’s starting to feel stress; he needs to take control of the situation. Identifying the causes of stress is necessary. Once Mr. Garcia understands what the cause of the stress is, he can make changes. The key to managing stress is taking control of your life and learning how to how the problems that arise (Stress Management: How to reduce, prevent and cope with stress,

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