Homecare Nurses: A Case Study

A homecare nurse is in the process of making her visits. Her next stop is a new family, the Solitano's from the movie, Silver Lining’s Playbook (Russell, 2012). Before arriving, she knows very little about the family. She knows that there are three members, Pat Sr., Dolores, and Pat. Pat has bipolar disorder and has recently been released, without his father’s permission, from a psychiatric hospital after eight months. The doctors did not think he was ready, but his mom was insistent. Pat has also been married before, but now his wife has a restraining order on him. The nurse also knows that Pat Sr. has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Upon arriving to the house, she is very surprised to see a police walking out of the door. The entire neighborhood is awake and seems quite upset. She can hear faint yelling and shouting and decides to still go in. Once inside, the scene seems to be almost cleared up.

Dolores proceeds to explain the entire situation to the nurse. She begins, “late last evening, my son Pat came home after meeting with his friend Tiffany. He was so upset for some reason and I had no idea why. I let him be, although it took everything in me to do so. He started searching through the house and I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Pat Sr., and I went to bed and we had been asleep for a couple hours. All of a sudden, Pat came bursting into the room in a panic because he could not find his wedding video. I tried to help him look, but he was too far- gone to care. I didn’t know what to do at that point. When the police came and asked me about him, all I said was that the indecent was nothing more than a medication issue.” The nurse just learned that Pat does not take the medicine or follow orders given as discharge