| Course | NR 324 Adult Health I |
|---|---|
| Week | 2 |
| Paper type | Concept map with narrative |
| Length | About 1,150 words, 3 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | BSN (pre-licensure) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 324 Week 2
Concept Map: The Daily Jobs That Heart Failure Hands a 72-Year-Old Retired Printer and His Wife
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 324: Adult Health I
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Concept Map: The Daily Jobs That Heart Failure Hands a 72-Year-Old Retired Printer and His Wife
How the Map Is Built
Mr. T. is 72, a retired commercial printer, and has heart failure with a reduced ejection fraction, 30% on his last echocardiogram. He went home yesterday after four days in hospital for fluid overload, his second admission this year. He lives in a single-story house with his wife, who is 70 and drives. The map was drawn backward from its endpoints: I listed every job that his condition creates in an ordinary week, then drew lines back to the one box in the middle that explains why each job exists. Every line ends in something a named person does at a stated interval. On paper, the drawing becomes a table of jobs followed by the labeled lines, read in the same order a viewer's eye would follow them.
The Center
The center box reads: "Heart pumps weakly (ejection fraction 30%); kidneys hold on to salt and water when the heart falls behind; the excess settles in the lungs and the lower legs." That is all the map says about the disease itself. It is enough to explain every job on the outer edge, which is the point of the exercise. Four medicines sit in a second box beside the center, because each one creates jobs of its own: sacubitril-valsartan, carvedilol, spironolactone and dapagliflozin, the four classes the current heart failure guideline recommends for reduced ejection fraction, with furosemide added to remove fluid (Heidenreich et al., 2022).
The Jobs at the Edge of the Map
Table 1 lists the jobs. The owner column shows that almost none of this work happens with a nurse in the room.
Table 1
Jobs Heart Failure Creates, With Owners and Intervals
| Job | Owner | Interval | Line back to the center |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stand on the bathroom scale after the first trip to the toilet, before breakfast, in pajamas | Mr. T. | Daily | Fluid gained shows as weight before it shows as breathlessness |
| Write the weight in the notebook by the scale | Mr. T. | Daily | One number means nothing without yesterday's beside it |
| Call the heart failure clinic nurse if up 3 pounds from yesterday or 5 pounds in a week | Mr. T.; his wife if he has not | When the number says so, before noon | Early call allows a diuretic change at home instead of admission |
| Take furosemide with breakfast, not later than 10 a.m. | Mr. T. | Daily | Removes fluid; taken early so he is not up all night |
| Take carvedilol and sacubitril-valsartan with breakfast and supper | Mr. T.; his wife fills the weekly pill box on Sundays | Twice daily; box filled weekly | Reduce the strain on the heart over months |
| Stand up slowly, sitting on the bed edge for a minute first | Mr. T. | Each time he gets up | The medicines lower blood pressure; dizziness can mean a fall |
| Look at both ankles and press over each shin | His wife | Every evening | Swelling in the legs is fluid the scale may not yet show |
| Count the pillows needed to sleep | Mr. T. | Nightly | Needing one more pillow means fluid in the lungs |
| Read the sodium line on labels when shopping; avoid canned soup and deli meat | His wife | Weekly shop | Salt holds water |
| Walk to the end of the street and back | Mr. T. | Twice daily, 10 minutes each | Keeps muscles working; builds toward cardiac rehabilitation |
| Blood draw for potassium and kidney function | Mr. T. goes; clinic nurse reviews | In 1 week, then every 3 months | Spironolactone and sacubitril-valsartan can raise potassium |
| Phone check-in from the heart failure clinic | Clinic nurse | Day 3 and day 7 after discharge | Most readmissions happen early |
Lines to What the Jobs Prevent
Weighing and the notebook lead to preventing readmission for fluid overload. Earliest sign the person would notice: the number on the scale up 2 to 3 pounds overnight, before any breathlessness. Chaudhry et al. (2007) found that patients admitted for heart failure had been gaining weight gradually for about a month before admission, and that weight gains of more than 2 pounds in the preceding week were associated with higher odds of hospitalization, rising with the size of the gain.
Blood draws and the potassium line lead to preventing a dangerously high potassium. Earliest sign the person would notice: usually nothing at all, which is why this job belongs to the calendar and not to symptoms.
Standing slowly leads to preventing a fall. Earliest sign the person would notice: lightheadedness or a gray feeling in the vision when getting up from the chair.
Why the Map Was Drawn From the Edges In
My first draft started from the diagnosis and branched out into pathophysiology, signs and symptoms, and nursing diagnoses. It filled a page and contained no work at all: the outermost boxes said things like fluid volume excess and knowledge deficit. None of them told Mr. T. or his wife what to do on Tuesday morning. Starting from the jobs and drawing lines back to the center made the map shorter and made it obvious that his wife carries at least four of the jobs. It also showed a gap I had missed. No one owned the job of noticing that he had stopped doing the others, so I added the clinic nurse's phone check-ins on day 3 and day 7 as the last row, because early follow-up is the point when a slipping routine can be caught.
The map also made the medicines visible as work rather than as a list. Each of the four guideline-directed medicines creates a task: taking it at a set time, standing slowly because of it, or having a blood test because of it. Heidenreich et al. (2022) recommend all four classes for most patients with reduced ejection fraction, and the map shows what that recommendation looks like in a kitchen: a Sunday pill box, a breakfast routine, and a lab slip on the refrigerator.
What the Map Leaves for the Care Plan
The map deliberately stops short of nursing diagnoses and outcome statements, which belong in next week's care plan. What it hands forward is a list of owners. Mr. T. owns most of the jobs, his wife owns or backs up four, and the clinic owns two. If his wife were ill or away for a week, her four jobs would have no owner, and the care plan will need to say who takes them. The map also hands forward one open question: whether Mr. T. can read the small print on food labels, since his wife currently does all of it. That is a teaching question, and it will be asked before his next clinic visit.
References
Chaudhry, S. I., Wang, Y., Concato, J., Gill, T. M., & Krumholz, H. M. (2007). Patterns of weight change preceding hospitalization for heart failure. Circulation, 116(14), 1549-1554. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.690768
Heidenreich, P. A., Bozkurt, B., Aguilar, D., Allen, L. A., Byun, J. J., Colvin, M. M., Deswal, A., Drazner, M. H., Dunlay, S. M., Evers, L. R., Fang, J. C., Fedson, S. E., Fonarow, G. C., Hayek, S. S., Hernandez, A. F., Khazanie, P., Kittleson, M. M., Lee, C. S., Link, M. S., . . . Yancy, C. W. (2022). 2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA guideline for the management of heart failure: A report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines. Circulation, 145(18), e895-e1032. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000001063
Reading the NR 324 Week 2 instructions
Week 2 calls for a map of one patient living with a chronic condition, plus a few paragraphs explaining it. Most versions of the prompt want the condition at or near the center, related findings and problems, interventions and links, plus a narrative and sources. A map that ends in nursing diagnoses or topics like nutrition shows no work. Make each outer box an action with an owner and an interval, since most chronic care happens at home with no nurse present. Draw lines from jobs to the events they prevent, naming the first thing the person would notice. Keep the pathophysiology brief. Show which jobs are most likely to be dropped.
How this NR 324 Week 2 example is built
The paper introduces Mr. T., an ejection fraction of 30 percent, two admissions this year and a single-story house. The center box holds one sentence on how a weak pump leads the kidneys to hold salt and water. Table 1 lists the jobs, such as standing on the scale before breakfast, writing the weight down, taking medicines at set times and standing slowly, each with an owner and interval. Lines lead to prevented events: a 2 to 3 pound overnight gain before breathlessness, citing Chaudhry et al. (2007), a high potassium that gives no warning and a fall. A section explains abandoning the diagnosis-centered draft, citing Heidenreich et al. (2022).
Reading the NR 324 Week 2 grading rubric
Concept map rubrics in this course usually grade clarity of the central concept, relevant and specific content, meaningful links, application to the patient, a narrative with sources and organization. The content row decides most of the grade, so every outer box is an action with an owner and interval. Links score when they lead to prevented events and the first sign a person would notice. Application is credited when the jobs belong to Mr. T. and his wife, not to the condition in general. The narrative earns points for explaining why the map was rebuilt. Guideline and outcome sources support the jobs. Showing which jobs get dropped first meets the critical thinking criterion.
Common NR 324 Week 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Most of the loss comes from one place: a map whose last box is a diagnosis, so it holds no daily work. Next is a box carrying a topic, such as feet, instead of an action. Jobs with no interval read as advice, not a schedule. Every line belonging to the nurse, when most care happens without one, costs points. A generic risk list in place of this person's risks and a plan with no weak points also lose marks. Keep the condition in the middle to one or two sentences. If the case says little about home, ask what it implies and state your assumptions. Showing a missed job's consequence is a strength. Send your case, and the map can be drafted from the edges in.
Get a NR 324 Week 2 example written to your instructions
Send the mapping prompt from your section, the rubric, any software or file type your instructor requires, and the condition or patient you were assigned. We build a custom map to those requirements, with the written piece where one is asked for, and return it inside 24 to 48 hours. The first is free.
More NR 324 papers and pre-licensure samples
- NR 324 Week 1: Chronic Condition Management Post
- NR 324 Week 3: Case Study Analysis
- NR 324 Week 4: Care Plan
- NR 324 Week 5: Patient Teaching Plan
- NR 324 Week 6: Perioperative Write-up
- NR 324 Week 7: Medication Management Case
- NR 324 Week 8: Discharge Summary Paper
- NR 325 Week 2: Case Study Analysis
- NR 304 Week 2: Focused Ankle Exam Write-Up
- NR 326 Week 2: Therapeutic Communication Exercise
- NR 302 Week 2: Health History Interview Write-Up
NR 324 Week 2 questions, answered
How much of the condition itself belongs in the middle of the map?
Enough that each job has a visible reason and no more. The middle is there to answer why somebody does this every day, so one or two boxes usually cover it, and a reader should be able to follow a line from the reason to the task without stopping. Detail past that point spends the space the jobs needed.
What if the case says nothing about how the person lives?
Then the map says so and works from what an adult with this condition would ordinarily face, marking those parts as assumptions rather than as facts from the case. Instructors trim cases deliberately, and naming an assumption reads as control. Where your section does supply a full history, everything on the page should be traceable back to it.
Should the map show what happens when a job is missed?
In most sections that is where the higher marks sit. A line running from a skipped task to the thing it was preventing shows why the schedule matters at all, which is the point of the exercise. Keep those lines few and clearly marked, so a reader can tell what is happening now from what would happen if the work stopped.
Where can I find a free NR 324 Week 2 sample paper?
The full Week 2 concept map of the daily jobs heart failure creates for Mr. T. and his wife, with owners, intervals and prevented events, is reproduced on this page.
Why is the NR 324 Week 2 map drawn from the edges in?
A first draft built from the diagnosis ended in boxes like fluid volume excess that told Mr. T. nothing to do, so the final map starts from the daily jobs and traces each back to the center.