Why Don’t We Pay Attention to Oral Care in the ICU?

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

“Although meticulous oral care has been shown to reduce the risk of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), oral care practices among critical care nurses remain inconsistent, with mouth care often perceived as a comfort measure rather than as a critical component of infection control.”

scanning electron micrograph of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria, one several types that can cause VAP/CDC Scanning electron micrograph of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, one of several bacteria types that can cause VAP/ CDC image

So begins one of our CE feature articles in the current issue of AJN. In “Mouth Care to Reduce Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia” (which you can read for free), the authors discuss why mouth care is so important among the interventions to reduce VAP—and why it is often not given a high priority among patient care procedures.

I have to confess that in my clinical days, mouth care was done almost as an afterthought. In our critical care unit, we were always diligent in monitoring vitals signs and IV fluids, suctioning, turning and positioning the patient, but oral care usually was a perfunctory task, completed with a few quick swipes with lemon-glycerine swabs.

Booker and colleagues explain why oral care deserves the careful attention we give to other measures. They also review the research […]

2016-11-21T13:06:16-05:00October 16th, 2013|nursing perspective, nursing research|2 Comments
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Delirium at the Hands of Nurses

by Augustin Ruiz, via Flickr by Augustin Ruiz, via Flickr

Amanda Anderson, BSN, RN, CCRN, works as a nurse in New York City and is pursuing a master’s in administration from Hunter-Bellevue Scahool of Nursing at Hunter College. Her last post for this blog was “A Hurricane Sandy Bed Bath.”

Leo is young but I’ve cared for him in the ICU many times. It’s late, but he’s awake, talking, in a voice like Kermit the Frog’s. My eyes traverse the path between his, the patch of hair beneath his moving lips, and the newly healed trach site on his neck. He is too long for the bed frame that supports him—we’ve taken off the footboard, and his big feet stick out from the white blanket over his legs.

Tonight, Leo is stable, but this hasn’t always been the case; I’ve known him since the beginning, months and months ago. A long and nasty alcohol addiction led to a bad case of pancreatitis and multiple interventions to save his life. The saving is what I’m most familiar with—the sedated, unstable, intubated, tenuous Leo, not this chatty, relaxed, stable Leo.

Leo is my only patient tonight, a rarity in a busy urban hospital. The unit is empty and slow, not much care to give, nothing requiring immediate attention. So, I sit with him and talk […]

2016-11-21T13:06:35-05:00September 11th, 2013|nursing perspective, Patients|2 Comments
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On Its Own Terms: An ICU Nurse Considers Human Adaptability

By Marcy Phipps, RN, a regular writer for this blog. Her essay, “The Love Song of Frank,” was published in the May (2012) issue of AJN. Some of the patient’s identifying details in this post have been changed to protect privacy.

by ashraful kadir/ flickr by ashraful kadir/ flickr

I caught an airing of The Shawshank Redemption the other day. It’s one of my favorite movies—full of irony and rich with messages of hope and perseverance.

There’s one line from the movie, in particular, that I love:

“Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

It’s one of my favorite movie quotes, and one that plagued me at work recently as I took care of a woman who’d suffered such a high-level fracture to her cervical spine that her injury was compared to an internal decapitation.

Her doctors had talked with her and her family at length about her injuries and prognosis, and although she’d initially indicated that she wanted to withdraw aggressive care, as time passed her directives became inconsistent—she’d tell her husband one thing, her medical team something else. On the day I was her nurse, she looked at me and very clearly mouthed the words “I don’t want to die,” then shut her eyes tight, ending our brief conversation as effectively as if she’d stood and left the room.

I think that most of the time, at least in the ICU where I work, people aren’t “getting […]

2016-11-21T13:07:26-05:00May 30th, 2013|Nursing, nursing perspective, Patients|3 Comments
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The Nuts and Bolts of Fluid Therapy in Critically Ill Patients

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Back in the day when I was a bedside nurse, hemodynamic monitoring was just coming into play, and then only in coronary care. In the ER, we relied on a combination of vital signs (pulse and BP), urine output, and central venous pressure (CVP) to guide fluid administration. Later, patients in need of close monitoring received arterial lines to monitor pulmonary arterial pressures; monitors and stopcocks were everywhere (and soon after, infections, but that’s another story . . . ).

But things are changing again, and the trend is toward less-invasive monitoring. In our May issue, we’re pleased to bring you a comprehensive CE article (worth 2.6 contact hours), “Using Functional Hemodynamic Indicators to Guide Fluid Therapy.” The author is Elizabeth Bridges, PhD, RN, CCNS, an associate professor in biobehavioral nursing and health systems at the University of Washington School of Nursing and a clinical nurse researcher at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. Many critical care nurses will know her from her “standing room only” research sessions at the American Association of Critical Care Nurses National Teaching Institute (this year it will be in Boston, May 20–23), in my view one of the best annual national nursing meetings.

Here’s the article abstract:

Hemodynamic monitoring has traditionally relied on such static pressure measurements as pulmonary artery occlusion pressure and central venous pressure to guide fluid therapy. Over the past 15 years, however, there’s been a shift toward less invasive or noninvasive monitoring methods, which […]

2013-05-01T09:38:12-04:00May 1st, 2013|nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Good Medicine

musichospitalroomBy Marcy Phipps, RN, a regular writer for this blog. Her essay, “The Love Song of Frank,” was published in the May (2012) issue of AJN.

Last week I saw something extraordinary.

I watched the music of Amy Winehouse soothe a patient who was recovering from a traumatic brain injury while suffering withdrawal symptoms from certain street drugs. He’d been irritable and restless all day, fidgeting and climbing out of bed, unable to rest and miserable in his persistent unease. He wasn’t interested in television, was too agitated to read, and the Celtic flute music supplied on the hospital relaxation station was useless to him as a diversion.

But when another nurse and I pulled an old stereo from behind the nurses’ station and played Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” at his bedside, his demeanor changed as suddenly as if we’d flipped a light switch. He leaned back into his pillow, sighed, and said, “That’s nice.”

For the next hour he barely moved.

Those familiar with Amy Winehouse’s music will know how completely at odds her vibe is with the atmosphere in a hospital—and perhaps that’s why her music mesmerized my patient, relieving his intractable agitation more effectively than any medication.

I often forget about complementary therapies—like music therapy—in the ICU. Prescribed medications are almost always the first intervention for pain and agitation, and yet complementary therapies are sometimes hugely effective adjuncts and easy to provide. I’ve seen fury stopped […]

2016-11-21T13:07:48-05:00April 22nd, 2013|nursing perspective|5 Comments
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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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