EXPERIENCE RELATE 10.4025/cienccuidsaude.v16i3.27314 Cienc Cuid Saude 2017 Jul-Sep; 16(3) *Nurse. Specialist in Obstetrics by the Federal University of Ceará. Fortaleza, CE, Brazil. E-mail: lana.vcalves@gmail.com **Nurse. PhD in Nursing from the State University of Ceará. Fortaleza, CE, Brazil. E-mail: patriciafreire1982@yahoo.com.br ***Nurse. Master in Nursing from the Federal University of Ceará. Fortaleza, CE, Brazil. E-mail: suzy_veras@hotmail.com ****Nurse. PhD in Nursing. Adjunct Professor, Federal University of Ceará. Fortaleza, CE, Brazil. E-mail: isis_aguiar@yahoo.com.br. ROY’S ADAPTIVE MODEL FOR THE CARE OF THE BEDRIDDEN ELDER: EXPERIENCE REPORT Lana Valéria Clemente Alves* Patrícia Freire de Vasconcelos** Suzy Ramos Rocha*** Maria Isis Freire de Aguiar**** ABSTRACT As the Brazilian population is aging, there is an increased vulnerability, diseases risks and prevalence of chronic diseases, which increases the number of bedridden, fragile and highly dependent elders. This study aimed to identify the stimuli that act in a bedridden elder, establish nursing diagnoses and interventions to assist in the promotion of adaptive responses. This is an experience report, developed during the follow-up of a bedridden elder due to Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA) complications. A script for data collection based on Roy’s Adaptation Model was used. The evaluation of behaviors and stimuli recognized the diagnoses: risk of disuse syndrome, aspiration risk, reflex incontinence, impaired skin integrity, self- care deficit and impaired comfort. Through nursing interventions, the main results were: improved muscular rigidity and reduced diameter of the pressure ulcer. Roy’s nursing process provided the stimuli identification, enabling a more specific assistance. Keywords: Nursing Theory. Psychological adaptation. Nursing care. Nursing diagnosis INTRODUCTION With the aging of the Brazilian population, arising from the demographic changes that have occurred in recent years, there is an increased vulnerability, risk of harms and prevalence of chronic diseases, which increases the number of bedridden, fragile and highly dependent elders. Thus, it is necessary to produce knowledge aimed at the development of a nursing care plan and development of high-effective care, able to promote the comfort, well-being and improvement in the elders’ quality of life (1) . In this sense, health professionals of the Primary Health Care are challenged to deal with these fragile and bedridden elders, who are unable to go to the health unit. Through the home visit, the professional can establish a greater link to the family and the user, and may promote attention focused on reality and uniqueness of the subject and his/her family, favoring the establishment of goals and priorities for effective assistance and holistic family care (2) . The nurse plays an increasingly decisive and proactive role regarding the identification of the bedridden elder’s needs, as well as in the promotion and protection of the individuals’ health, in their different dimensions (3) , ensuring a safe care by care management. The nursing role consists of a comprehensive health action, of which the nurse is part, actively and proactively, in different spaces of experience, professional sectors and social contexts. Based on the professional’s concern to intervene on the health problems, printing a theoretical orientation that allows systematizing his/her practice, developing a care plan based on a scientific process that provides subsidies and allows reflecting and evaluating, nursing theories have arisen. In order to implement a care plan to the elder who suffers from senility process – pathological ageing – who has lost his/her ability to perform activities of daily living and has started to depend on others to do them, it is important to use Roy’s Adaptation theoretical model to identify adaptive or ineffective responses to changes and their different conditions, contributing to individualized care (4) . Roy describes the person as an adaptive system with inborn and acquired mechanisms, which allow competing with the internal and external changes that may occur. He classifies these mechanisms as regulators or innate, whose answer is automatic and arises out of the neural, chemical and endocrine activities, and recognizing and acquired mechanisms, whose answer is given by