If Nurses Are War Heroes, They Deserve Real and Lasting Support

Matthew Waring/Unsplash

The rhetoric of war is regularly applied to health care, whether we’re talking about a patient “fighting” cancer or “frontline” workers like nurses engaged in a “battle” or a “war” against a new infectious disease. This is a habit beloved of speech makers, academics, and journalists, and it’s likely to continue.

With strong metaphors comers real responsibility.

Rather than decrying this practice in favor of a more purely accurate use of language, the author of this month’s Viewpoint, Lorri Birkholz, DNP, RN, NE-BC, an assistant professor of nursing at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, argues that the choice to use such language comes with responsibility.

“If war language is going to be used to define this pandemic and the nurses caring for patients, then legislation must ensure care for their acute and long-term physical and mental well-being.”

Birkholz notes that federal COVID-relief legislation limited provisions for frontline workers to temporary hazard pay and mandated sick leave—far short, by way of comparison, of that received by 9/11 first responders or returning war veterans. […]

2022-01-24T09:56:24-05:00January 24th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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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, when migraine […]

2022-01-14T16:11:56-05:00January 14th, 2022|Nursing|1 Comment
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Therapeutic Humor in Nursing: More Important Than Ever

Nursing during a pandemic is no laughing matter…but it was for me.

Photo by Mathias Konrath on Unsplash

Assessing mental health patients over the phone at the VA was always challenging. I worked with the primary care providers, assessing new patients and getting them the right mental health resources.

Little did I know it was going to be taken to another level during the pandemic. It was Covid mental health mayhem: Covid cold calls, suicidal calls, PTSD patients plummeting with increased isolation and hospitalizations. There was increased depression, anxiety, and insomnia (and that was just the RN staff members, LOL!).

I couldn’t control this pandemic, my frustration over anti-vaxxers, the fatigue, fears, or sadness. But what I realized I could control was my daily interactions with the patients. I had to do review the PHQ-9 questionnaire for major depression symptoms and the GAD for anxiety. Once I’d finished the mental health assessments, I’d concentrate on the behavioral activation their results suggested.

Cultivating patient connection through laughter.

Having taken part in research on the therapeutic benefits of humor, one strategy I often used with these patients was to ask them, “What made you laugh today?”

At first, many couldn’t think of anything. So I decided to ask about more specific subjects […]

2021-12-01T08:29:30-05:00December 1st, 2021|Nursing|2 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 teaching […]

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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