Introduction
Vital signs are an important factor in the nursing process. Nurses every day assess a patient’s vital signs every hour, sometimes even every fifteen minutes depending on the situation. These vital signs include: heart rate, respirations, blood pressure, and temperature. Today, nurses also treat pain as the fifth vital sign because of its importance to the nursing process as a whole. Pain is an undesirable side effect that arises from many disease processes and surgical procedures. It is not the same to every person that experiences it. Many things can affect how a patient perceives their own pain. Some aspects that alter a patient’s way of perceiving pain are culture, past experiences with pain, age, gender, and the ability to
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There were sixty-three patients that were included in this study. Thirty-five of those patients responded in the final questionnaire at the conclusion of the study and all thought that massage therapy was effective in helping to reduce stress (Drackley 121). Of those thirty-five, thirty-four of them believed that massage therapy was useful in reducing stress and twenty-nine of the thirty-five felt that it was extremely effective in reducing fatigue, creating a general feeling of wellness, improved their sleep quality, and also improved their ability to think more clearly (Drackley 121). Through the use of massage therapy with these women, there was an improvement in the patients’ lives. Even the nurses realized that the use of massage therapy did not disrupt any of the patients’ care plans and that the patients in fact actually enjoyed the option of being able to receive massages (Drackley 123). With the patients being more comfortable and happy, the nurse is happier to from not having to deal with grumpy postoperative patients. The main limitation in this study was the small sample size. There were only sixty-three patients that were able to participate in the study in the Mayo Clinic Breast Clinic located in Rochester, MN. However, through the patients who responded back in the final questionnaire, showed the positive aspects that massage therapy brought to their postoperative
Often time, nurses has been viewed by patients, their family members and the medical team as basic emotional care givers, pill crushers or cart pullers and not as healthcare professionals who are more interesting in health promotion, disease prevention and better patient outcomes. They also often forget the emotional, physical, mental, and caring part that is involved with the profession. And to make matters worse, nurses are continued to be viewed as a threat by doctors more than ever before especially with the opening of Nurse Practitioners programs.
Nurses help patients with their physical needs with details, explain the complex steps of medical treatment, communicate with doctors to share patients’ health conditions and proper treatments, and give emotional support to patients in stressful situations. There are certain limitations that nurses have in decision makings because doctors obtain the most power in patients’ medical clinics. However, nurses are more friendly, helpful, and suffering for patients. Lastly, experienced nurses can make a better choice for the patients over young and un-experience
...tive pain management and Improvement in patients outcomes and satisfaction [Magazine]. Critical Care Nurse, 35(3), 37,35,42. Retrieved from
Assessing and managing pain is an inevitable part of nursing and the care of patients. Incomplete relief of pain remains prevalent despite years of research due to barriers such as lack of kn...
At some point of life, virtually everyone experiences some types of pain. Despite the availability of standardized pain management methods such as using analgesics and opioids, patients might inadequately managed for pain if pain assessments are done inefficiently. Nurses are in a unique position to assess pain as they have the most contact with the child and their family in hospital. Getting a thorough pain assessment occasionally hard for nurses with the patients whom cannot collaborate. For example, pain in infants and children can be difficult to assess.
Kolcaba, K., Dowd, T., Steiner, R., & Mitzel, A. (2004). Efficacy of hand massage for enhancing the comfort of hospice patients. Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing, 6(2), 91-102. Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=12&sid=2de162ef-afff-4a48-8415-83dcedf9530a%40sessionmgr110&hid=104
Touch is as essential to a healthy and happy life as eating right, getting proper sleep, and exercising. With the world growing more technological, the need for healthy human contact is more important than ever. Massage and body therapies are an age old healing refuge for us in this fast-paced, stressed-out world. The practice of massage therapy is rapidly growing in the United States. It has so much to offer and is becoming more widely accepted by doctors and the general public. Massage is touching another person by such movements as rubbing, kneading, pressing, rolling, slapping, and tapping. This type of therapy provides circulation of the blood and lymph, relaxation of muscles, relief from pain, restoration of metabolic balance, and many other benefits both physical and mental. There is much historical evidence to indicate that massage is one of the earliest remedies for pain relief and for the restoration of a healthy body. It is said to be the most natural and instinctive means of relieving pain and discomfort. Massage has proven to be an effective method for treating many conditions for thousands of years and it will continue to be used for thousands of years to come. Massage therapy is a great treatment for the body and soul.
In the medical profession, personnel are asked to make judgments or draw conclusions based on measureable results. Physical assessments, vitals, CT scan, MRI, biopsy are all activities engaged in to prove abnormalities and make decisions as to the way forward. So having hunches are not considered reliable and rightly so. To decide to give a particular medication because of a mere hunch can lead to serious errors. However, pain which is now considered a part of the vital signs is based on the patients’ philosophy or view point and we (nurses) are told not to ignore but respond. This is highly subjective. It’s viewed how the patient sees it and not as tangible or measurable as the other ways of proving when something is abnormal. The situation to be presented will disclose a patient’s ordeal due to a nurse’s approach to or understanding of pain management. It will also assess whether the nurse responded in accordance to protocol.
Findings. Pain has many different meanings to many people. What is important to know as a nurse or health care provider is that pain is what the patient says it is. It is not the nurse or provider’s place to determine what the patient’s pain is but rather take an in-depth history and assessment. Using this assessment and history can therefore help treat your patient’s pain accordingly. Also pain theories have been proposed and used the implications of nursing practice in regard to pain.
The general idea of, K, is that a nurse must have knowledge in the diversity of cultures, ethics, and education. The significance of this faction being that if the nurse is cognizant of the patient 's culture, beliefs, family values, support systems, and education level, a more thorough and comprehensive plan of care can be formulated. The premise of, S, is that a nurse must be skilled in the ability to communicate with and advocate for the patient, assess for and properly treat pain, and incorporate the needs and concerns of the patient and their family. The significance of this group and development of these skills include the achievement of pain control, increased rehabilitation periods, and an increase in patient/family satisfaction. The theme of, A, requires that a nurse maintains an open attitude toward the patient and to respect and validate the nurse-patient relationship, which will aid in a positive nurse-patient
Pain and suffering is something that we all would like to never experience in life, but is something that is inevitable. “Why is there pain and suffering in the world?” is a question that haunts humanity. Mother Teresa once said that, “Suffering is a gift of God.” Nevertheless, we would all like to go without it. In the clinical setting, pain and suffering are two words that are used in conjunction. “The Wound Dresser,” by Walt Whitman and “The Nature of Suffering and Goals of Medicine,” by Eric J Cassel addresses the issue of pain and suffering in the individual, and how caregivers should care for those suffering.
As a nurse, it is important to address the needs of a patient during care. These needs are unique to each individual and personalizing it, enable the patients to feel truly cared about. It is important to be educated about these needs as the patients and their families look to you as a guide; therefore, education on things w...
...amount of pain) is a great teaching tool for the patient who is able to self-report (Nevius & D’Arcy, 2008). This will put the patient and nurse on the same level of understanding regarding the patient’s pain. The patient should also be aware of the added information included with the pain scale: quality, duration, and location of the pain. During patient teaching, it should be noted that obtaining a zero out of ten on the pain scale is not always attainable after a painful procedure. A realistic pain management goal can be set by the patient for his pain level each day.
Massage has been practiced for many centuries and has been used for a number of reasons, from medical treatments to general relaxation therapies. Lots of styles have been developed throughout the years and therapists have adapted their personalised treatments using routines, methods and mediums to create the effects and feelings that they are looking to achieve for their clients. Massage includes the therapist using mainly their hands, elbows and arms to manipulate the body’s muscle tissues. There are many types of massage however the main one we have looked at as a class is Swedish massage. This form of massage includes five main movement groups.
This reflection of vital signs will go into discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of each vital sign and the importance of each of them. Vital signs should be assessed many different times such as on admission to a health care facility, before and after something substantial has happened to the patient such as surgery and so forth (ref inter). I learned to assess blood pressure (BP), pulse (P), temperature (T) and respiration (R) and I will reflect and discuss which aspects were more difficult and ways to improve on them. While pulse, respiration and temperature were fairly easy to become skilled at, it was blood pressure which was a bit more difficult to understand.