Importance of an Assessment Plan for Patients' Cancer Care

Cancer today is not the automatic death sentence that it used to be, but it is an illness that continues to require the nursing profession’s holistic focus for compassionate and effective patient care.

contribute to the costly effect include the fact that nurses have, increased incidence of nurse burnout and patients have poorer outcomes increasing both mortality and readmission rates. Nurses are a large component to keeping readmission rates down through spending time with a patient and educating and empowering patients on self-care through helping patients understand importance of medication regimen adherence, importance of diet adherence, ways to reduce infection and various other skills to care for self at home" (Problem Memorandum Assignment, 2015) The documents exigence is crucial the audience to better the outcome of patients and that of the health

Hope Cancer Resources is an organization that “provides compassionate, professional cancer support and education in the Northwest Arkansas region today and tomorrow (Support Groups of NWA, n.d.).” Hope Cancer Resources serves a large variety of cancer patients in NWA and surrounding areas, including Central Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. They provide many services and interventions to clients such as financial assistance, emotional support, tobacco cessation, and transportation. From a social services perspective, one of their most effective interventions is support groups. Hope Cancer Resources offers seventeen different supports groups that are diagnosis, gender, or activity specific. Many patients engage in the services,

This paper will address and evaluate the research problem itself, the design of the study, the sample, how the data is collected, its limitations, and its findings. Furthermore, how does this study impact the overall nursing process?

McMillan, PhD, ARNP, FAAN, S. C., Small, PhD, B. J., & Haley, PhD, W. E. (2011). Improving Hospice Outcomes Through Systematic Assessment. Cancer Nursing, 34(2), 89-97. Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/737818_print

This article focuses on the study of an oncology nurse perception of patients with cancer and their perception of how to help with these patients’ pain levels. These findings are related to nurse’s interventions for a patient suffering in pain. The nurse should educate the patient about unreported pain. The nurse can help with psychological interventions to help with the environment by adjusting temperature in a room or providing a distraction such as books or the TV. With this study, nurses should be educated on appropriate resources to help these patients who are suffering with pain.

Understanding the five phases of the Cancer Journey - from Shock and Awe through Building the Support Team from the perspective of patients, family members and caregivers/advocates

In the process of treatment, it is important to observe and fulfill other needs of the patient and the family that arise as a result of the predicament of cancer. It is essential to provide them with nursing education regarding the type of cancer. This will be beneficial in fostering co-operation of the patient to the process of treatment. It will also inform the patient and the family about the peculiarities of the treatment process, such as what to expect as positive outcomes or side effects (Lovell et al., 2014). The nursing education will allay the patient’s anxiety because the patient will be aware of the significance of the different interventions. This will influence a good working relationship between the patient and the treatment team,

The nurse’s role at the cancer center was essentially a very important part of the patient’s health. They all were very impressive at making sure that the patients had what they needed in order to get better. The nurses worked with social workers and doctors to make sure that the patients was given the best therapy for their individual situation. One example I seen was a patient whose family was paying for his treatments. The doctor wrote an order for a PICC. The patient had good veins and was only getting chemotherapy for 10 mins. The nurse went and talked to the doctor about giving the man his

The study gathered satisfaction data from 880 patients and 54 caregivers. 42% of the patients and 33% of the caregivers reported being satisfied. The sample in the study was predominantly 94.3% White, 69.9% female, 76.4% partnered, and 83.5% living with a spouse, family member, or friend. Inclusive support groups that included the patients and the caregivers reported higher levels of group satisfaction. In the study, patients and caregivers each had different preferences and perspectives on which topics were most important. Patients found more importance in cancer educational information and sexuality. Caregivers ranked dealing with anxiety and depression, stress management, role changes, end-of-life-care, and bereavement as more important than their patients (Morse et al., 2014, p.

Lung cancer has impacted many people’s lives in the world today. Lung cancer is the leading cause of death caused by cancer in the United States (Lewis, 2014, pg. 535). The diagnosis of lung cancer is proceeded by a low cure rate and a high mortality rate. Diagnosis of lung cancer increases the person’s level of physical distress, psychological distress and social isolation (Johnston, 2013). Due to the low cure rate, palliative care becomes essential after the diagnosis of incurable/inoperable lung cancer. In palliative care, the nurses and team of physicians must work together. Palliative care allows the suffering person to have a reduction in hospital stays, more time spent at home with family, and greater patient satisfaction; it also allows the patient to have a voice in the dying process (Dale, 2011). Early access to palliative care increases the persons understanding of his/her illness, and facilitates coping and symptom management (Johnston, 2013). In palliative care, it is important for the nurse to initiate and a patient-centered relationship (Dale, 2011.). The role of the nurse is very important in palliative care.

A Cancer diagnosis may bring on many negative emotions, questions and uncertainties in a patient. Even though we now have different types of treatments for cancer, there are still numerous deaths annually attributed to the diagnosis. The World Health Organization has described the number of mortalities to be greater than 8.2 million annually around the world (World Health Organization [WHO], 2015). As nurses, we must serve as the patient’s advocate and empower them throughout the course of their illness. Nursing care for cancer needs to incorporate teaching and providing patient’s with knowledge concerning their diagnosis, treatments and side-effects, being present and supportive, showing emotional and spiritual encouragement and also using evidence-based interventions to help alleviate the patients’ pain and suffering brought on by their malady and treatments.

Certain medical treatments can vigorously impair quality of life without providing noticeable benefit, whereas other medical treatments greatly strengthen the quality of life. Quality of life is a broad multidimensional concept that usually includes subjective evaluations of both positive and negative aspects of life (Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL). Quality of life has a connotation to everyone, for each individual defines it in their own way. Quality of life includes physical and mental health perceptions such as energy level, mood, awareness and how they correlate to health risks and conditions, functional status, social support, and socioeconomic status. Key territories of overall quality of life are components of culture, values and spirituality that add to the complication of figuring out the quality of life for each patient. Quality of life is an important consideration in medical care and with its growing advances. Quality of life issues have historically played an important part in the nursing role of patient advocacy. In Year 2000 Oncology Nursing Society Research Priorities Survey by Mary E. Ropka, the results showed that the quality of life ranked second among the top twenty research priorities of the oncology nurses. Ultimately, the path to find a common ground on this controversy must be found soon, considering all patients lives matter and even the small things in the last few days can impact

The case study based on the palliative patient Mrs. Mavis looks at issues both the family and the patient are dealing with in regards to the end of life treatment Mrs. Mavis is receiving. Mrs. Mavis is a palliative patient, currently unconscious, who is dying and only wants comfort measures within her nursing care. This was made clear through her advanced care directive, which was made weeks before beginning to receive her end of life care. Mrs. Mavis’ comfort measures include pain relief, hygiene and keeping her comfortable. Mrs. Mavis’ family want her to have fluids and medications to help improve her health. They also want oxygen and pain relief to help with her breathing. Issues such as educating and supporting the family, pain management, the effectiveness of having an advanced care directive and pain assessment will be evaluated to determine the best effective interventions for Mrs. Mavis and her families care. Interventions that will be discussed through-out this essay include the use of analgesia medication, the use of subcutaneous injections and syringe drivers, emotional support for the family, effective communication, educating the family on Mrs. Mavis’ wishes and the importance of having an advanced care directive. These interventions will be evaluated to ensure they are the best practice for Mrs. Mavis’ care.

Her ideas revolve in having the nurse and the client work on these needs for improving health condition. In the nursing profession, assessment is very critical for the plan of care. The success of our interventions would greatly depend on how substantial our assessment to our client. Henderson’s 14 basic needs would be a good reference in assessing our client’s needs for care.