A Patient’s Inner Soundtrack from Better Times

Illustration by Gingermoth. All rights reserved. Illustration by Gingermoth. All rights reserved.

She was at high risk for developing bedsores and it was important that she be turned every two hours, but when approached by staff, she would scratch, punch, and spit. Her speech consisted of expletives, which she screamed in a shrill, piercing voice.

Music can soothe, comfort, engage, bring a recognizable world into an alien one. And, crucially, it can allow a nurse or other caregiver a chance to provide badly needed care to someone with dementia or mental illness who is agitated, confused, hostile, or terrified.

In this case, the place is Detroit and the music is Motown. The short passage above is from the Reflections essay in the September issue of AJN. “Playing Her Song: The Power of Music” is not the first submission we’ve had about the ways music can reach patients when words and other measures fail.

Putting on some music would seem a simple kind of strategy, but it may be worth a try in some situations that seem otherwise hopeless. Please give the short essay a read. Reflections are free.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

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2016-11-21T13:03:58-05:00September 8th, 2014|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Finding the Calm: A Nurse-Led QI Project to Reduce Patient Agitation

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Photo by Lanny Nagler, courtesy of Hartford Hospital Photo by Lanny Nagler, courtesy of Hartford Hospital

For many people, “going to hospital is rather like going to an alien planet,” as the British cartoonist and book illustrator Sir Quentin Blake once observed—it’s a very stressful experience taking place in an unfamiliar environment. For some, the experience of hospitalization can trigger or worsen agitation. In the October CE “Decreasing Patient Agitation Using Individualized Therapeutic Activities,” author Christine Waszynski and colleagues report on a nurse-led quality improvement project that demonstrated promising results. Here’s a short summary.

OVERVIEW: Hospitalized patients who are suffering from cognitive impairment, delirium, suicidal ideation, traumatic brain injury, or another behavior-altering condition are often placed under continuous observa­tion by designated “sitters.” These patients may become agitated, which can jeopardize their safety even when a sitter is present. This quality improvement project was based on the hypothesis that agitation can be decreased by engaging these patients in individualized therapeutic activities. The authors created a tool that allowed continuous observers to identify a patient’s abilities and interests, and then offer such activities to the patient. Data were collected using a scale that measured patient agitation before, during, and after these activities. The authors found that during the activities, 73% of patients had decreased levels of agitation compared with baseline, and 64% remained less agitated for at least one hour afterward.

The intervention appeared effective in reducing levels of […]

2017-07-27T14:49:56-04:00October 4th, 2013|Nursing|1 Comment
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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