undergraduate student. When I was presented with the idea in my nursing fundamentals class, I decided that I would look into it and see if it was something that would interest me. From the moment that I met my mentor, I knew that this is something that would change my college experience and that I am definitely going to move forward with. I am excited to participate in a project that a lot of people in my position don’t get the opportunity to pursue. I am honored that I was selected to go out and research an unanswered in question in nursing. The purpose of my project is to see how motivational interviewing affects elderly clients above the age of 65, who have obstructive sleep apnea and mild cognitive impairment, and their adherence to CPAP machine usage. I see my project being related to my long term goals because I eventually want to get my PhD in nursing and there will always be questions that need answering in the medical field. I know that starting my research skills now will only improve as I reach different heights in my nursing career and begin a research study of my own. On a weekly basis, I meet with either my mentor or her colleagues in the sleep lab. I enter patient data and look through patient files to see what their past and present CPAP machine usage is like and how motivational interviewing has affected their scores. I have just recently written a semi-structured motivational interviewing questionnaire to be submitted to the IRB so that my portion of the project can begin. I am also in the process of submitting an abstract to the Gerontological Society of America and presenting my findings at a local conference in DC this November. This week I discovered that majority of the clients take medications for cardiovascular diseases than may be related to sleep apnea.
