Duties and Responsibilities of a Certified Nursing Assistant

The job of a certified nursing assistant entails hard work and dedication. Acquiring certification after spending years taking CNA training makes a nursing assistant more credible as a health care provider. It also makes him knowledgeable in performing tasks that lean on personal care for patients who require special needs. It is important to emphasize and to know the different duties and responsibilities that a certified nursing assistant has.

In order to perform these duties and responsibilities, a person must undergo a CNA training program provided by community schools and nursing facilities. This rather short course requires 75 hours of training, with 16 of these hours implemented in the clinical facility. After completing training, he must then take the CNA certification exam, and must pass this to become a CNA.

The duties and responsibilities that a CNA must perform include, but are not limited to, personal hygiene, dietary care, administering medication and treatment, medical record, and emotional support. These are done under the supervision of the registered nurse or any head nurse in a nursing facility or hospital.

When it comes to personal hygiene, it is the CNAs duty to assist the patient with their cleanliness, especially when giving them a shower or a wash, and dressing the patients up. In dietary care, it is the CNA’s role to feed the patients properly, especially if they are unable to feed themselves. It is the task of CNAs to check the time when medication can be administered to the patient as well as assist in treatments.

They are also tasked to regularly check the vital signs of their patients, such as temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate and respiration rate. Of course, although it may be a secondary task for some, it is still important for CNAs to offer emotional support to patients in order to make them feel good despite the illness or incapacities that the patients have.