Explain how your own perceptions about quality of life and health problems might affect your care for a dying patient with a lingering illness such as cancer

Explain how your own perceptions about quality of life and health problems might affect your care for a dying patient with a lingering illness such as cancer

Explain how your own perceptions about quality of life and health problems might affect your care for a dying patient with a lingering illness such as cancer. It is the nurse’s responsibility to remove their personal beliefs when providing care to the patient. If the nurse is persistent in their own beliefs and values there can be a disruption in the successful transition to palliative care. Nurses may feel that they are failing at their job when a patient chooses to go into palliative treatment. The nurse may question their performance as a nurse and have uncertainty regarding whether or not they could of done something more for that patient, so the patient would want to continue more aggressive treatment. Nurses might not understand why the patient has chosen to opt out of aggressive treatments or follow pain treatment regimes. It is imperative that the nurses realize that she/he is to provide treatment and education and the patient is not to be judged for their decisions. To treat someone in a palliative care environment the nurse needs to remove their personal beliefs to provide in depth assessments, teaching, and collaboration with other practitioners and agencies to provide a holistic plan of care that is tailored to the patient – not the nurses beliefs and values.

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B. Discuss three strategies that you could use in the Thomas’s situation to improve the quality of life for Mrs. Thomas and her husband during this illness.

a) The first intervention to be initiated would be an in-depth assessment to address Mrs. Thomas’ needs. The nurse not only should start with a physical assessment, but should go further to address all of Mrs. Thomas potential and actual needs. Based on Mrs. Thomas’s intake information the nurse should anticipate the need for a thorough pain assessment. The nurse should assess Mrs. Thomas pain by identifying…

Mrs. Thomas has been prescribed Vicodin and has choosen not to take it, because she feels she will become addicted, she might be confusing tolerance and physical dependence as addiction (Ersek M. ,1999). Another integral part of the pain assessment is to identify if Mrs. Thomas has used any nonpharmacological physical or psychological treatments such as relaxation, massage, heat and cold, music, and exercise. In addition, it is imperative to identify if Mrs. Thomas has received surgical or nonsurgical treatments, such as acupuncture, nerve blocks, and / or neuroablation (Goudas , Carr, Bloch, et. al, 2001 ). Alternative treatment modalities could be of benefit to ease Mrs. Thomas’s pain.

2. Referral to a palliative care physician or a pain specialist. The nurse needs to assess whether or not the patient has seen palliative care physician or a pain specialist. Many other pain treatment options are available for end stage cancer that do not have addictives properties such as NSADISs and adjutant analgesics such as corticosteroids for neuropathic pain and biosphosphates for bone pain (Davies and Squi, 2002). Mrs. Thomas has knowledge deficit related to understanding pain therapy – and needs to understand the difference between addiction and treatment. A palliative care physician can help educate Mrs. Thomas to pain treatment options and other alternative interventions such as palliative radiation to shrink tumor that may be the source of her pain.

3. Referral to Social Worker
When the nurse completes a social dignity inventory he/she will note that the there is deficit related to the ability of the spouse to provide care due to the husband’s depression and lack of knowledge the disease process. A social worker can help identify agencies that can provide a patient care assistant (PCA) or respite to assist the spouse with caring for his wife. The social worker may be able to identify meal programs that will deliver food…