CNA Training And Becoming A Nursing Aide

Via effective CNA Training, nursing assisants and psychiatric aides help to care for people who are physically or mentally impaired, disabled, injured, or individuals who are currently in hospitals and nursing care homes. Home Health Aides have very similar duties, but a big difference between them and CNA’s is that Home Health Aides work in patients homes or residential care homes. Nursing aides and home health aides are commonly known as ‘direct care workers’, due to the fact that they work with patients who need long term care. Of course, the exact specifics of the care they give highly depends on their speciality, and their patients needs.

Nursing Aides, who are also known as ‘Nurse Aides’, ‘Nursing Assistants’, Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA), Geriatric Aides, Unlicensed Assistive Personnel, Orderlies, and ‘hospital attendants’ generally provide ‘hands on’ care, and perform routine tasks under the supervision of other medical staff.  A CNA’s tasks can vary, as nursing assistants handle many different aspects of a patients care. Common duties that most CNA’s will perform is helping their patients to eat, dress,  move around, while keeping their room neat and tidy.

Certified Nursing Assistants also answer calls for help, deliver messages to and from the patient, serve food, make beds, tidy rooms etc. Some nursing aides are also responsible for taking a patients temperature, pulse, respiration rate, and blood pressure. They may also help patients get in and out of bed, help them walk, escort them to examination rooms when needed, and also provide skin care. Sometimes a CNA will be asked to help other medical staff at the facility by setting up medical equipment, moving supplies, and assisting (where possible) with some procedures. Aides also observe and monitor patients physical health and emotional condition, and report any changes back to the nursing and medical staff.

Certified Nursing Assistants who are employed in nursing care homes are often the sole caregivers, having much more contact with residents and patients than other members of staff. Because some residents stay in a nursing care home for months to years at a time, CNA’s develop long term relationships with their patients, and interact with them and their lives in a positive way.

Home Health Aides help the elderly, or disabled, to live in their own homes instead of health care facilities. Under the supervision and direction of medical staff, they provide health related services to the client, for example, administering oral medication. Like Nursing Aides, Home Health Aides may check their patients pulse rate, temperature, and respiration rate, also helping with simple exersize. They may also help patients get in and out of bed, dress, bathe, groom etc. On occasion, a home health aide might change non-sterile dressings, give massages and provide the patient with skin care. They can also help with braces and artificial limbs. Home Health Aides with the right experience and training, may also assist their patients with medical equipment such as ventilators, which help patients to breath.

The majority of the time, most Home Health Aides work with patients who need more extensive care than their family and friends can provide. Some help discharged hospital patients who have short-term needs.

Doing some CNA Training, and in turn becoming a Certified Nurse Aide, can give you a job for life. You’ll have the security of knowing you’ll always be able to work, you’ll earn a respectable living, and most of all you will have pride and satisfaction, which not many other jobs offer!