About Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)

Editor-in-chief, (emerita), AJN

Migraines: A Comprehensive Review of the Most Debilitating Primary Headache Type

r. nial bradshaw / flickr creative commons

This month’s CE feature article, Diagnosing and Managing Migraine, is one I’m sure many readers will relate to, and perhaps even find some answers in for their own headaches.

Like many women, I could count on experiencing at least one each month—classic menstrual migraines—that would begin with a visual aura of wavy lines that made reading or driving impossible. Sometimes, taking acetaminophen or ibuprofen right at the onset of the aura and relaxing/lying down, could prevent it from progressing further.

Otherwise, I would become overly sensitive to lights and sounds and develop a pounding headache and nausea that made me retreat to a dark, quiet room for several hours until the headache passed.

The most debilitating type of primary headache.

The authors note that “90% of the U.S. population will develop a headache within their lifetime.” Migraine, the most debilitating type of primary headache (that is, when the headache is the disorder as opposed to being secondary to other causes), occurs in about 12% of the population. I was surprised that while prevalence is fairly equally distributed among boys and girls prior until puberty (2.5 or 2.4 percent), it changes dramatically post-puberty:

“The greatest difference between the sexes occurred between the ages of 20 and 40, […]

2022-01-14T16:11:56-05:00January 14th, 2022|Nursing|1 Comment
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2021: A Year of Hope and Heartbreak

Photo of AJN editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy

(This post is a reshare of AJN‘s January issue editorial; to browse the rest of the issue, visit our website, ajnonline.)

Last January, our cover was an artist’s rendering of the planet Earth as a SARS-CoV-2 virus molecule. In my accompanying editorial, I wrote that it was “unfathomable that over 275,000 Americans have died from COVID-19” and that the number would likely increase. Now here we are, a year later, with another COVID-19 cover. The white flags in the cover photo, installed on the National Mall in Washington, DC, by artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, represent each person who has died from the virus. Sadly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of November 28 this number had reached 776,070—well over double last year’s tally. The flags offer a stark visual image of the magnitude of our loss.

What’s especially startling is that the United States leads all countries in both deaths and confirmed cases. The World Health Organization reports that, as of November 29, U.S. confirmed COVID-19 cases totaled 47,837,599; India was second with 34,580,832. Globally, 5,200,267 people have died from the disease. It’s disheartening that the United States has lost so many people and could lose so many more, given that vaccines are available.

There was hope that the two vaccines that received […]

2022-01-03T10:32:29-05:00January 3rd, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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What Can We Do About Addressing Nurse Exhaustion?

“Even when good workplace policies and support exist, without enough staff to meet essential patient needs, nurse fatigue cannot be properly addressed.”

Photo by Matthew Waring on Unsplash

When I was working as an ED nurse, if a colleague was out sick we’d invariably be asked to work a double shift—so, 16 hours instead of our usual eight-hour shift. It wasn’t bad as a one-time occurrence. But I can’t imagine how nurses have managed working five or more days of 12-hour shifts in a row, or even more, during the surges of Covid-19 patients needing hospitalization in various parts of this country. It’s no wonder there are so many stories and reports of nurses leaving the acute care setting.

While the obvious answer is that there needs to be more staff to share the work, not only to improve staff well-being but also to make care safer—and this is not a COVID-induced phenomena; we’ve known this for years thanks to research by Linda Aiken and others—getting that to happen has largely been unsuccessful.

Hospitals staff conservatively as a policy, causing many to be short-staffed on an almost ongoing basis. This makes for a stressful work environment that in turn causes nurses to leave, thus further exacerbating […]

2021-12-03T09:51:29-05:00December 3rd, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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Looking for Positive Things As We Near Thanksgiving

As we near Thanksgiving, I increasingly find myself looking for positive things—partly to help diminish my sadness about the still-mounting COVID-19 deaths and the nearly universal strain that everyone, perhaps especially those in health care, seems to be feeling.

As I wrote in last November’s editorial:

“Though I’m by no means a Pollyanna, I do believe incessant dwelling on the negatives doesn’t help any of us; we also need to examine the positives. I recall how exhausting it was to work a long, hard shift alongside someone who complained about everything. The negativity colored my own perceptions and stayed with me well after the shift ended. Conversely, working with colleagues who offered support and voiced a “we will get through this” attitude inspired confidence and optimism. My first nurse manager in the ED was superb at this, especially during some very harrowing shifts.” […]

2021-11-23T15:17:39-05:00November 23rd, 2021|wellness|0 Comments
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Helping Older Adults Get the Care That Matters to Them

Family caregivers should be partners in caring when family members are hospitalized.

“An estimated 41.8 million Americans were caregivers of an older adult relative or friend in 2020.” (From “The Four Ms of an Age-Friendly Health System” in AJN‘s November issue.)

That’s an impressive number, especially when one considers that any of the caregivers themselves may be older adults with chronic illness.

Are we preparing caregivers?

We ask a lot of these individuals, especially given the many complex tasks they are asked to perform, often with little or no training. And that’s nursing’s role—ensuring our patients are discharged to family members prepared to provide the care needed.

As a nurse, I felt prepared to be a caregiver for a family member who was discharged after complex cancer surgery. I was astonished at the brief discharge instructions for managing the Foley catheter, drains, and eight different medications; then I was handed a manila folder of papers about each medication. It took me a few hours to sort out schedules for medications and flushing drains.

But what about caregivers with no health care training, or who may not have manual dexterity or see clearly, or perhaps lack literacy at the level needed? Unfortunately, many hospitals are under resourced—in […]

2021-11-15T10:49:14-05:00November 15th, 2021|Nursing, Patients|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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