community health nurse practice: hospice nursing
This is discussion post. PLEASE USE the textbook below for reference and at least one SCHOLARLY PEER-Review.
This is student discussion post. Please read and write a post back in response to what is writing. Please do not use this discussion for future writing. 1-2 paragraph is enough. Adding to the discussion is great. Please use appropriate reference
The community health nurse practice that I chose for this discussion is hospice nursing. I work in a skilled nursing facility and see many hospice patients. I collaborate a lot with hospice nurses throughout my shift. I thought it would be interesting to learn more about hospice nurses and specific interventions they do in the community for hospice patients. “Nurses who work with the terminally ill seek to enhance the patient’s quality of life by focusing on relieving suffering throughout the illness, supporting the patient and family through the dying process, and providing grief support to the family after he patient has died” (Nies & McEwen). The hospice nurse focus on comfort care only for the patient. Not only that, they care for the grieving family. A hospice nurse takes on a lot in the community. They help the hospice patient die peacefully and comfortably while taking care of the family members as well. The family members are a lot of the times very stressed from the situation. The hospice nurse must take on a lot of pressure providing so much comfort, care and healing.
“Tertiary prevention focuses on limitation of disability and the rehabilitation of those with irreversible diseases such as diabetes and spinal cord injury” (Nikes & McEwen). Hospice patients are definitely in tertiary prevention. Hospice patients usually have under six months to live. The main focus for hospice patients is comfort care. I have seen many hospice patients in increased amounts of pain before passing away. It is important on those end stages to manage their pain well. It is important for the patient and the family as well to make sure their loved one is not suffering. According to an article about caring for hospice and palliative care patients, it discusses how hospice nurses can help control hospice patient’s pain. “The goal should be safe, timely, effective pain reduction with minimal treatment side effects. Although medication is the most common approach for moderate to severe pain, non-pharmacologic choices can be effective alone or in combination with medication (position changes, heat or cold compresses, music therapy, relaxation techniques, distraction)” (Croson, Keim-Malpass, Bohnenkamp, LeBaron). As much as pain medication is extremely important, other factors that were just mentioned are important as well. Putting on music the patient enjoys is a great intervention. Being a hospice nurse does so much for the community because not only does it help the hospice patient, it helps family members throughout the process and into the grieving process of death.
References:
Nies, M. A., & McEwen, M. (2015). Community/Public health nursing: Promoting the health of populations (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders/Elsevier.
Croson, E., Keim-Malpass, J., Bohnenkamp, S., LeBaron, V. July 2018. The Medical-Surgical Nurse’s Guide to Understanding Palliative Care and Hospice. Charlottesville, VA. Med-Surg Nursing.
Nies, M. A., & McEwen, M. (2015). Community/Public health nursing: Promoting the health of populations (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders/Elsevier.
