About Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

Senior editor, American Journal of Nursing; editor of AJN Off the Charts.

AJN’s Top 5 Guest Blog Posts of 2021

One of my roles as a senior editor at AJN is to edit and maintain AJN’s blog. We try to publish a new post two to three times each week.

A percentage of these are original first-person nursing stories and perspectives by nurses in various specialties, from critical care to community health to oncology to school nursing. I often think of these as the lifeblood of the blog, the posts that can really reach people at the feeling level, and I am always grateful to receive them—from regular or first-time authors. These posts can be heartbreaking or gently humorous, or both. The range of styles and voices is wide.

Other equally important posts are those by nurses with an argument to make about an urgent issue in practice or policy. Some of these give rise to a certain amount of debate and stimulate further discussion in the nursing community.

In addition, a fair number of short posts are by AJN editors, in some cases bringing to bear their own clinical or personal experience as they address a matter of concern like nurse staffing, or providing essential context about why they think you should read an article found in that month’s issue.

As we’ve done in the past near the start […]

2022-01-19T10:38:00-05:00January 19th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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Recent Study: Electrolyte Disorders Common in Thiazide Diuretic Users

  • Hyponatremia and hypokalemia occur in approximately 20% of patients who take thiazide diuretics.

Thiazide diuretics are widely used in the treatment of hypertension, yet their use is associated with electrolyte disorders. Researchers investigated the prevalence of and risk factors for hyponatremia and hypokalemia in patients taking thiazide diuretics, substance-specific risks for these electrolyte disorders, and whether the use of thiazides is associated with a higher risk of syncope and falls.

The cross-sectional analysis by Ravioli and colleagues published in the American Journal of Medicine included all adults admitted to the ED in a one-year period whose sodium and potassium levels were measured on admission. The researchers conducted detailed chart reviews for all patients and screened for a history of syncope or falls.

Of the 20,421 patients for whom sodium and potassium measurements were available, 1,604 were taking thiazide diuretics regularly.

Acute kidney injury was more common in thiazide users than in nonusers (21.4% versus 7.2%). Hyponatremia and hypokalemia were also significantly more common in patients taking thiazides versus nonusers (22.1% versus 9.8% and 19% versus 11%, respectively).

[…]

2022-01-12T11:02:34-05:00January 12th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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Best Wishes from AJN for the Winter Holidays and Coming Year

2021-12-23T09:34:03-05:00December 23rd, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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Distinguishing Between Delirium and Dementia in a Mother’s Rapid Decline

We now know just how vulnerable older adults in long-term care have been during the pandemic. COVID-19, especially in the pandemic’s early months, cost many their lives far too early. Even today we are seeing the disease bring premature death to the elderly, especially at facilities with lower staff vaccination rates. Just two days ago, NBC news reported the following disheartening NEJM study results:

“People in nursing homes are much more likely to die of Covid-19 if the staff caring for them remains largely unvaccinated, a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine found.”

Other forms of decline accelerated by the lockdown.

But the isolation from family members and other external contacts imposed by the many months of lockdown had other less easy to measure costs. This month’s Reflections essay, “Again in a Heartbeat,” by Jeanne Kessler, MSN, RN-BC, details her own dawning awareness that something had begun to change in her mother as time went by during the lockdown at her assisted living facility.

Suddenly her mother couldn’t talk on the phone any longer. This wasn’t like her at all. Her attention span had shortened drastically. There were other worrisome indications. While […]

2021-12-10T07:55:02-05:00December 10th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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‘I Didn’t Think It Would Happen to Me’

A daughter notices cognitive changes in her mother, a former geriatrics nurse.

Illustration by Janet Hamlin for AJN.

This month’s Reflections essay, “In Full Bloom,” is a gentle, humane exploration of what it’s like when an aging parent shows signs of cognitive decline. Author Diane Fraser deftly weaves memory, incident, and reflection together in this bittersweet one-page essay.

She describes her mother’s dawning realization of the hard reality of her own aging. “I’m old,” she said. “I’m really old.”

And then later, perhaps also alluding to her worsening dementia:

“I didn’t think it would happen to me. . . Those were my patients. This is me.”

There’s a family birthday party. An annual visit to a lilac festival where the author begins to find certain aspects of her mother’s behavior puzzling.

This is all described with lightness and respect. It’s just how it is, the author seems to suggest. We might as well make the best of it.

She remembers the sometimes bawdy stories her […]

2021-11-01T10:19:57-04:00November 1st, 2021|Nursing|0 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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