Providing Nursing Care For Cancer Patients

This author’s personal perceptions concerning patients facing a lingering terminal illness, have been shaped by over 20 years of critical care nursing experience. Facing death and illness on a daily basis requires self-examination and a high degree of comfort with one’s own mortality, limits and values. Constant exposure to the fragility of life forces respect for the whole person and the people who love them. A general approach to patients who are actively dying is to allow them to define what they want and need during this time. The nurse’s role

If you are this type of doctor you have to make sure all of the scanning images are very clear and readable. Next, you have to decide which images show the healthiest or pathological areas. Then, you have to observe and read over the results and care of the patient during the scanning procedures and make sure you get the correct data for the right person. They

* CT or MRI scans – these sophisticated scans involve lying still inside a machine as it takes images of the internal organs. The pictures that result can give a very good idea of whether cancer might be present but aren 't absolutely definite as cell samples are needed to make a full diagnosis. Scans are often done in order to guide a biopsy to suspicious areas.

The movie “Wit” is a great educational tool for healthcare professionals in terms of dealing with terminally ill patients. It teaches that nurses and medical professionals should always remember that their patients are not a case nor illness nor experiment but rather human beings with souls and pains. Palliative care is one of the most disputed issues of worldwide importance. While bureaucrats in different countries are making laws on the use of palliative drugs, patients with excruciating pains learn how to “take deep breaths and be strong” (Nichols & Brokaw, 2001). That is what nurse Susie Monahan from “Wit” advises her dying patient Vivian Bearing suffering from unbearable pains due to stage IV ovarian cancer after eight painful rounds

Pain is one of the most common and feared complications of cancer. It is exacerbated by stress, anxiety, fatigue, and malaise which accompany advanced cancer. Pain is generally absent in the early stages of cancer, but it is a significant factor as the illness progresses to advanced stages. Cancer-associated pain can arise from a variety of direct and indirect mechanisms including direct pressure, obstruction, and invasion of a sensitive structure, stretching of visceral surfaces, tissue destruction, infection, and inflammation (McCance 2010). Pain is generally accepted as whatever the patient says it is, wherever the patient says it is. Treatment of pain and its associated symptoms is a primary responsibility of the healthcare team. Treatment modalities for pain include the use of opioid analgesics, patient-controlled analgesia, psychological interventions, and preventing recurrence of pain. Reinforcing the reporting of pain by the patient is important, as is a respect for the social and cultural differences with respect to pain perception.

Tests to see if you have other types of tumors in other parts of the body.

Nursing workforce covers an extensive continuum from wellbeing advancement, disease counteractive action, and the coordination of great care. Furthermore, it analyzes curative practices when conceivable, and also looks at the palliative examination when the treatment is impractical. The given continuum of practice is very much coordinated to the present and future needs of the nurses, hence, helps the American populace. The IOM report makes it less demanding for the medical nurses to ascertain the crucial part of patient appraisals and

In nuclear medicine diagnosing techniques, a very small amount of radioactive material is introduced into the body. Because medical isotopes are attracted to specific organs, bones or tissues, the emissions they produce can provide crucial information about a particular type of cancer or disease. Information gathered during a nuclear medicine technique is more comprehensive than other imaging procedures because it describes organ function, not just structure. The result is that many diseases and cancers can be diagnosed much earlier.

My earliest experiences of observing nursing in action occurred during my last two years of high school. My father was diagnosed with cancer during the spring of my junior year and died right before my senior year. During that short time I watched as the nurses cared for him and I could see compassion and empathy in the way they looked at him. It never occurred to me until after I had raised my children that I wanted to be able to help people in the same way those nurses helped my dad. But now when I tell people that I want to be an oncology nurse, people often respond by saying that they would never choose that type of nursing. They say that they could not stand to watch their patients die so frequently.

Nurses are a respected part of our community. They’re trained and educated to help heal, teach, and offer supportive care. Nurses can specialize in different areas, one would be the hospice field. Hospice patients typically have six months or less to live. Hospice will normally be provided in the patient’s home; however, the patient may also receive hospice care in the hospital, nursing care facility, or a family member’s home (“Home Health Care And Hospice Nursing”). According to Lauren Douglas, RN, while providing care in the home, the nurse must come prepared, and be expected to professionally and efficiently give outstanding care (Douglas). Hospice nurses often provide, teach, and monitor wound care, provide blood draws, as well as administer, and organize medications. Some hospice nurses will provide chemo-therapy and

Yarbro, C., Wujchik, D., & Gobel, B. (2010). Cancer Nursing: Principles and Practice (7th ed.). : Jones & Bartlett Learning.

There’s a biopsy where they take out the spot where they think the cancer is and test it for cancer. A CT scanning adds X-ray images with the aid of a computer to show across-parts and views of a patient's body. PET scans are often used to diagnose a condition or how a condition is developing in the body. They are used alongside X-rays. Patients are told to not eat for at least four to six hours before the scan but they can drink a lot of water. An MRI is a machine that uses a magnetic field and radio waves to create detailed images of the organs and tissues within your body. An X-Ray is an electromagnetic wave of high energy and very short wavelength, which is able to pass through many materials and to show through light. A bone scan is a nuclear imaging test that helps diagnose and track several types of bone disease. For treatment there are many different options. You have surgery, then you can have radiation therapy; and the high energy radiation kills cancer cells. Certain Kinase Inhibitors treat cancer that has a certain abnormal gene. Chemo Therapy is a drug treatment that blocks the spread of cancer. Immunotherapy is a treatment that teaches the body its defense system. Melanoma is found in body cells. The cancer is found in melanocytes, specialized cells in skin that produce brown color to skin known as

This essay will aim to look at the main principles of cancer pain management on an acute medical ward in a hospital setting. My rational for choosing to look at this is to expend my knowledge of the chosen area. Within this pieces of work I will look to include physiological, psychological and sociological aspects of pain management.

As a home care nurse, I am designated to care for a 56-year old female patient that presents with lymphoma which has metastasized to her spine, and is presently in quest for chemotherapy treatment.

When diagnosing bone cancer, a doctor must first complete some tests. According to a summary of tests and procedures by Medicine Net on line, a doctor will first ask about a patient’s personal and family medical history in order to find out if there is any history of cancer in the family. Next, the doctor will order blood tests and x-rays. The exact size, shape, and location of a bone tumor can be seen through an x-ray. Then, a CAT scan (Computed Axial Tomography) will be completed to show whether the cancer has begun to spread to other parts of the body. A CAT scan will give detailed pictures of the cross section of the body. There are also similar tests like an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and an Angiogram (x-ray of the arteries), but a biopsy is the ultimate test that will make sure that cancer is present in the body. After the victim was told that she had bone cancer, she experienced a biopsy in Seattle, Washington. The Medicine Net on line explained that during a biopsy, doctors test a sample of the bone tumor and determine through a microscope whether or not the tumor is cancerous. The many different tests of bone cancer are very critical to the outcome of the disease. The tests are used for staging the bone cancer. For example, if a patient of bone cancer had a CAT scan, and it showed that the bone cancer was not spreading, the doctors could stage the patient’s cancer as controlled.