patient engagement Archives - Page 8 of 25

Just Breathe: A Nurse’s Tough Love Proves Crucial During One Mother’s Labor

Photo by chintermeyer, via Flickr.

By Amy Collins, AJN managing editor

The pain jolted me from my sleep. It was 1:30 in the morning. The sensation was stronger than anything I’d ever felt, and I grabbed my phone to start my contraction timer. I had read loads on labor and childbirth, and everything suggested I was in for the long haul. But my timer was showing the contractions were already only five minutes apart. I spoke with the hospital’s on-call physician, who told me to relax and spend as much time as possible at home so I could be more comfortable.

But within minutes, the pain had increased to a level where it was difficult to talk. The contractions were now three minutes apart and my water had broken. My husband and I decided to go to the hospital.

I’d like to say I was strong and handled the pain of labor well, but I was quickly losing control and succumbing to anxiety. By the time we got to the maternity unit, I was sobbing. The labor nurse assigned to me introduced herself as Jean. She was older and seemed seasoned, with a stern, no-nonsense attitude. She brought me to a delivery room and gave me a gown. Before labor started, my plan had been to […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:01:25-05:00March 2nd, 2016|nursing perspective, patient engagement, patient experience|0 Comments

‘A New Antibiotic’: What Restores a Patient’s Will to Recover?

A little bit of levity when writing of serious topics can be good medicine. This month’s Reflections essay, “A New Antibiotic,” reminds us of how important it can be for hospitalized patients to be kept in touch with their lives and loves beyond hospital walls. In this story, author Judith Reishtein, a retired critical care nurse and nursing professor, finds herself willing to bend the rules a little for one patient. Here’s how it starts:

Sally had been a patient on the step-down unit all winter. After her open heart surgery, she developed an infection in her chest. The infection required another surgery and four more weeks of ventilator support as her open chest healed. Because she was not moving enough, she developed clots in her legs. Because of the DVTs, she had activity restrictions, which led to another bout of pneumonia. One complication led to another, with more medications that had to be carefully balanced. We tried not to do anything that would create a new problem while curing an existing one. Another dangerous surgery is getting breast implants, I always suggest to get a good surgeon to do it, you can find the best at http://utbreastaugmentation.com, I highly recommend it.

Now she was finally getting better, but her energy lagged behind. Did she still have the […]

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Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2017-06-02T12:12:14-04:00February 5th, 2016|narratives, nursing perspective, patient engagement|0 Comments

Managing the All-Too-Real Symptoms of Fibromyalgia Syndrome

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

(click image to expand)

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is one of the most common rheumatic disorders, affecting as many as 15 million people in this country, the vast majority of them women. People with FMS typically experience chronic widespread pain, as well as various concurrent symptoms that can include fatigue, cognitive disturbances (such as memory problems, confusion, and difficulty concentrating), distressed mood (especially anxiety and depression), nonrestorative sleep, and muscular stiffness. One study found that up to 65% of patients experienced lost workdays as a result.

Yet as author Victoria Menzies reports in one of our January CE features, “Fibromyalgia Syndrome: Current Considerations in Symptom Management,” many health care providers “doubt the syndrome’s validity.” Diagnosis is often delayed for years.

Menzies provides a concise overview of the illness, which has no known cure, and then focuses on what can be done to alleviate symptoms and improve patients’ quality of life. Here’s a brief overview of the article:

Symptom management appears to be best addressed using a multimodal approach, with treatment strategies tailored to the individual. While medication may provide adequate symptom relief for some patients, experts generally recommend integrating both pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic approaches. Some patients may benefit from the adjunctive use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) modalities. Because symptom remission is rare and medication adverse effects can complicate symptom management, […]

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Guest Author2016-11-21T13:01:33-05:00January 15th, 2016|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective, pain management, patient engagement, Patients|2 Comments

Watching a Friend Fade Away: A Nurse’s Account of the Progress of Dementia

By Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

Alzheimer’s disease and dementia have been in the news. There have been major movies about what’s it’s like to suffer the gradual loss of the ability to understand and to negotiate the world around us, with leading roles played by stars like Julianne Moore. The challenges of caregiving are receiving increasing attention, as are the growing pressures on our medical system. Every month there’s a report of a new potential cure, or a potential cause, or ways we might be able to fend off the illness through exercise, mental calisthenics, diet, and medications.

The January Reflections essay, written by Deborah Lane, a critical care nurse and community volunteer in St. Augustine, Florida, is called “Watching a Friend Fade Away.” Here’s the opening paragraph:

Frankie was a fast wit, a ginger-headed joker, impeccably dressed, and the first to laugh. She was a master’s-educated teacher who developed programs for at-risk teens, teaching pregnant high school students skills for employment and effective childcare. She loved to cook and her home was warm with beautiful arts and crafts she had made. She was a wonderful friend. Disease changed it all.

The author brings the perspective of both a loving friend and a nurse to this short, beautifully told account of the changes in her friend over the years, the efforts of two couples to keep spending […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:01:38-05:00December 29th, 2015|narratives, nursing perspective, patient engagement|0 Comments

How a Nurse Quietly Helped One Intern Out of a Tricky Situation

In this month’s Reflections essay, “My Turn,” a recently retired physician tells a story of how a nurse adroitly helped him through a very disorienting moment when he was still an intern. Here’s a bit of the setup:

Medicine was my first rotation as an intern. . . . [T]he medicine rotation had a particularly intimidating reputation and a red-hot I was not. I was terrified.

On morning rounds every day our entourage of physicians, nurses, and students would go room to room discussing each patient. I can still see the open door to Mrs. Finkelstein’s room near the morning sunlight at the end of the hallway. Mrs. Finkelstein was old and was dying. And every morning when we walked in, her husband was sitting there next to the bed, holding her hand. He told us regularly how many years they had been together. We each dreaded being the one on call when she died.

There are many situations in medicine and nursing that require a certain amount of experience—most readers will agree that this is definitely one of them. At a certain point in the story, the author finds himself being asked a question that absolutely needs to be answered, and answered immediately. It’s not […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:01:41-05:00December 9th, 2015|career, narratives, Nursing, nursing perspective, patient engagement, Patients|0 Comments