Morgellons: Whatever the Cause, the Suffering Is Real

Image, magnified 60 times, depicts fiber-embedded skin removed from a facial lesion of a 3-year-old boy who the Morgellons Research Foundation says has Morgellons. Image, provided by Morgellons Research Foundation to AJN in 2008, described as depicting fiber-embedded skin removed from facial lesion of 3-year-old boy with Morgellons (magnified 60x).

By Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

As you may have read, Joni Mitchell was recently found unconscious in her home and is now in the hospital. She has attributed her health issues to a syndrome called Morgellons—a condition in which sufferers experience what they describe as fibers emerging from their skin, along with intense itching, sores that won’t heal, and a host of nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue and concentration problems.

Whether it’s a clinically verifiable illness or, as some have argued, a manifestation of a psychological condition known as “delusional parasitosis,” Morgellons is plenty real to those who experience it.

We covered this controversial illness several years back in an article called “AKA ‘Morgellons.’” I interviewed two nurses and several others about their experiences. One of the nurses (see this sidebar) was convinced she had caught the condition from a patient. I also spoke with Michele Pearson, MD, the lead investigator of a then-pending […]

2016-11-21T13:02:44-05:00April 2nd, 2015|Nursing, nursing perspective, patient engagement, Patients|1 Comment
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Ebola Still Deserves Our Attention

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Photographed by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) team member, and EIS Officer, Dr. Heidi Soeters during Guinea’s 2014 Ebola outbreak, this image depicts what resembled a garden of red- and green-colored gloves propped up on sticks in order to dry after having been washed in a hyperchlorinated solution, thereby, killing any live Ebola viral particles. The pink-colored gloves were merely inside-out red gloves with their interiors exposed. The image was captured on the grounds of Donka Hospital, located in the country's capital city of Conakry/CDC Taken by Dr. Heidi Soeters during Guinea’s 2014 Ebola outbreak, photo depicts red- and green-colored gloves propped on sticks to dry after being washed in a hyperchlorinated solution./CDC

It’s sad but not surprising that Ebola has all but disappeared from the headlines. After all, it’s not an imminent threat here anymore. There’s […]

2016-11-21T13:03:08-05:00January 26th, 2015|infectious diseases, Nursing|1 Comment
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Ebola: A Role for Nurses in Sharing the Facts

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Screen Shot 2014-10-29 at 12.27.27 PMThe current Ebola crisis has everyone concerned over transmission, and rightly so. The public has been in a quandary as to who and what to believe. I can’t say I blame them. We should have been better prepared and anticipated that, given the situation in West Africa, we would eventually see a patient with Ebola present to a U.S. hospital ED (or clinic or urgent care center). What’s surprising is that it didn’t happen sooner.

I’d thought fears about widespread transmission of Ebola had abated after no more new cases arose from that of Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas: his family, who were in the apartment with him during the time he was sick, did not contract Ebola and have since been released from quarantine; the two nurses who became ill treating Duncan have now been declared Ebola free and none of their contacts have become ill; no other nurses who provided care for him have fallen ill.

But with the onset of confirmed Ebola in a New York physician who had recently returned from caring for Ebola victims in West Africa, fears of widespread contagion resurfaced. Craig Spencer had been self-monitoring his symptoms while he went about his life; when he began to feel ill and developed a low-grade fever, he initiated a controlled transport in isolation […]

2016-11-21T13:03:37-05:00October 29th, 2014|career, infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective|2 Comments
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Enterovirus D68: Precautions, Surveillance, Yes; Alarm, No

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

EV68-infographicAs news coverage focuses on the latest clusters of suspected—and, in some instances, confirmed—cases of human enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) as they occur in successive regions of the U.S., here’s a quick primer on what is known about EV-D68.

Is this a new, dangerous virus?
EV-D68, a non-polio enterovirus, is not a “novel” virus—the term used to describe emerging infections such as SARS and MERS. It’s more accurate to describe it as the CDC does: it is an “increasingly recognized” cause of respiratory infections, especially in children.

EV-D68 was first isolated in 1962. While reports of EV-D68 since then have been sporadic, the CDC in 2011 reported on clusters of this viral infection in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona as well as in Asia and Europe. It’s likely that there are hundreds or even thousands of EV-D68 infections every year in the U.S. But as with many other viral infections, they will range in severity, and an infection that looks like “a cold” isn’t usually brought to the attention of a health care provider.

According to the CDC, most enterovirus infections are actually asymptomatic; this may be the case with EV-D68 as well.

Diagnostic testing for EV-D68 involves RT-PCR and gene sequencing. Most hospital labs therefore are unable to test for it. Some readily available diagnostic […]

2016-11-21T13:03:56-05:00September 15th, 2014|infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective|2 Comments
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Hand Washing: What’s It Going to Take to Get the Job Done?

Handwashing Handwashing (Photo credit: kokopinto)

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

I took a few days off last week and caught up on some reading. Perhaps the article that struck me most was one from the New York Times on the various methods that many hospitals are using to improve rates of hand washing among nurses, physicians, and other direct care providers. Hospitals are trying everything from buttons that offer gentle reminders to camera monitors to mandating that direct caregivers wear electronic sensors that indicate whether or not they washed their hands.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the article was the remarks made by Elaine Larson, a nursing professor at Columbia University School of Nursing who had done extensive research on hand washing. She spoke of how some health professionals go out of their way to avoid washing their hands, even ducking under scanners.

A 2009 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that HAIs (hospital-acquired infections), cost U.S. hospitals between $28.4 to $33.8 billion annually in direct medical costs. Just think about what could be done with that money.

I don’t get it. We all know the importance of hand washing. From Ignaz Semmelweis, who introduced hand washing in obstetrical clinics in 1847 and as a result reduced puerpal fever, to Florence Nightingale, whose insistence on good hygiene and basic cleanliness helped to reduce death rates during the Crimean War, to the extensive body of research conducted by […]

2016-11-21T13:07:04-05:00July 10th, 2013|nursing research|7 Comments
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