Off the Charts

More than ‘Just’ Fragile Skin and Loose Joints: A Nurse’s Guide to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

“Most of the local doctors … thought I was making this up.”—patient on online forum

You might not have heard of Ehlers–Danlos syndrome (EDS), but chances are you’ve had a patient with this hereditary connective tissue disorder, which affects an estimated one in 5,000 people worldwide. The real number is probably higher. There are six types of EDS with widely varying presentations—and given the lack of consensus regarding diagnostic criteria, underrecognition seems likely.

Primary symptoms can include skin hyperelasticity, joint hypermobility, and general tissue fragility; the effects can be disabling and even life threatening. In one of this month’s CE features, “Nursing Management of Patients with Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome,” author Linda K. Anderson offers nurses a clear guide to this condition. Here’s a short summary: […]

Guest Author2017-07-27T14:40:17-04:00July 14th, 2015|Nursing|5 Comments

The Huddle: A New Mother’s Experience of Discharge Planning

By Amy M. Collins, AJN managing editor

By John Martinez Pavliga/Flickr Creative Commons

Three months ago, I gave birth to my first child under somewhat traumatic circumstances. After a fast and furious labor onset, I was all set to be given an epidural when I was informed the baby’s heart rate had dropped dramatically and I needed to have an emergency C-section. Thankfully, everything turned out okay, and my son was born healthy.

Nurses changed shifts every 12 hours during my four-day hospital stay, and each of them provided excellent care. They spent massive amounts of time with me, helping me to get up and walk around, showing me how to expertly swaddle my baby like a burrito, and even helping me get the hang of feeding my child.

On my last day, two nurses were assigned to get me ready for my discharge. They had tons of printed information for me on postnatal care, wound care, postpartum depression, etc. I was told by one of the nurses that we were going to now have a “mother–child huddle.” She then said to the other nurse, with what I took to be a little irony in her tone, “Are you ready for the mother–child huddle?” Curious, I asked why the emphasis on the word.

“I just think the word ‘huddle’ is silly,” she said, adopting […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:02:18-05:00July 10th, 2015|Nursing, patient engagement, patient experience, Patients|3 Comments

The Challenge of Bearing Witness to Patient and Family Suffering

“How do I honor this pain so that it teaches and blesses and does not destroy?”

By Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor

This month’s Reflections essay (“Why?“) is by a pediatric chaplain. As the title indicates, it’s about the questions we all ask in the face of suffering and loss. The precipitating event for the author is the baffled, enraged cry of a father who has lost a child, and her own struggles with the impossibility of giving an acceptable answer—to the child’s parents, or to herself as a daily witness of loss and suffering.

How does a chaplain, or for that matter a nurse, witness the pain of patients and their families time and again and keep from either shutting down or being overwhelmed by the stress and emotion? As we’re often reminded, self-care matters or there’s nothing to give the next time: yoga, gardening, humor, family, cooking, whatever works for a person. Is it enough? Yes, and no, says the author. Here’s an excerpt: […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:02:19-05:00July 8th, 2015|patient engagement, Patients|1 Comment

An Unending Series of Challenges: APIC Highlights the ‘New Normal’ in Infection Control

By Betsy Todd, MPH, RN, CIC, AJN clinical editor

APIC panelists (APIC president Mary Lou Manning; Michael Bell, CDC; Russell Olmsted, Trinity Health; Phillip W. Smith, Nebraska Biocontainment Unit) discuss various topics pertaining to infection control.

At the 42nd annual conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), held in late June in Nashville, experts from around the world shared information and insights aimed at infection preventionists but of interest to nurses in many practice settings.

APIC president Mary Lou Manning, PhD, CRNP, CIC, FAAN, opened the first plenary with the observation that to be presented with an unending series of challenges is the “new normal” in infection control and prevention. Collaboration is more important than ever in health care, she said, and “there is strength in our combined efforts.”

Cathryn Murphy, PhD, […]