Symptoms And Treatment Of Patient Falls Occurs

The following paper is a written critique of the following research article “Improving the evaluation of risk of fall through clinical supervision: an evidence” (Cruza, Carvalhoa, Lopesb, 2016). The purpose of this critique is to analyze, evaluate, and review each section of the above stated quantitative research article. This quantitative, descriptive and correlational study focuses on improving patient safety and quality of nursing care by improving the evaluation of a patients' fall risk using the Morse Fall Scale (MFS) assessment tool in practice under the implementation of a clinical supervision model. (CS)

As a nurse we want to ensure that our patients receive a high quality of care. Patients should feel safe and satisfied while hospitalized. Many hospitals are continually looking for answers and implementation to significantly reduce the inpatient fall incidents. According to Bechdel et al (2014), the top priority of health care organizations nationwide is to reduce and eliminate falls within the clinical care settings. One of the serious problems in acute care hospital is the patient’s fall. The unfamiliar environment, acute and co-morbid illnesses, prolonged bedrest, polypharmacy, and the placement of tubes and catheters are common challenges that place patients at risk of falling. Most of the falls that I have encountered while working involves

Giving myself time to read up on nursing experiences, attending more clinical practice labs, participating and watching these duties in the health care setting will allow me to develop a secure level of confidence the next time that this type of situation may occur. Staying in the room allowed me to experience the feeling of support while looking past social norms and how they are challenged. I met my personal values, and I believe that one should respect another person`s privacy. This understanding allowed me to be there to support the resident during her time of need. In the article `starting out` by Jane Schulz, a nursing student shares her experience of helping her colleague assist an elderly patient with daily care. Observing the compassion and care between nurse and patient from fundamental tasks, she took away a valued lesson of how our support and caring methods affect an individual. My relation to this story allowed me to reflect on the effects my care and supporting actions had on our patient.

Falls are a big concern for all employees in a hospital setting daily. The worst thing that can happen to a patient while being hospitalized is a fall, or a major fall, that could result in skin damage (i.e. wounds, skin tears, or abrasions), a fracture or break, thus limiting their independence. This student’s goal was to develop a way to educate staff members in ways they can help reduce the number of falls that occur. Developing a sample Fall Risk Prevention Policy as well as a Staff in-service on fall risk and Prevention achieved this goal.

For the most part, hospitals are places where one comes for healing and it is place where our clients should feel safe and away from harm. Nurses have an important role as a patient advocate and are to provide all clients with safe, compassionate, and quality care at all times. Nonetheless, the hospital can also be a dangerous place for inpatients. It is a foreign environment to clients and there may be alterations in their medical condition in regards to their physical and/or mental status. With this said, there is a need to improve upon how we care for our clients, especially those who are at most risk for various incidents.

A good point that arose from the situation was that Mrs Clarke did not injure herself and that her severe reduced mobility was now recognised and respected due to this incident. Mrs Clarke seemed to recover quickly from the incident. Although she was initially distressed this was short lived. There were several bad points that should be acknowledged. Firstly, I think it would have been beneficial if a second opinion from a qualified member of staff was sought, this possibly would have prevented the situation from occurring. Secondly, Mrs Clarkes’ wishes were not respected, she was in a very vulnerable position and this I felt contributed to her being persuaded to mobilise against her will and better judgement. Mrs Clarke also ended up in a very awkward and exposed position on the floor and the way in which she was manually handled meant her dignity had been considerably compromised. Finally, Mrs Clarke was manually lifted back onto the bed which again potentially put her and the staff involved at further risk of injury. In addition to this, to my knowledge the incident was not reported.

Kalisch, Beatrice J. PhD, RN, FAAN; Tschannen, Dana PhD, RN; Lee, Kyung Hee MPH, RN (2012). Missed Nursing Care, Staffing, and Patient Falls. Journal of Nursing Care Quality: January/March 2012 - Volume 27 - Issue 1 - p 6–12 doi: 10.1097/NCQ.0b013e318225aa23.

At the time of the incident, I felt very inadequate. I felt that I was not a good advocate for Ms Lisa, nor did the AMU nurse fulfil the clause of the NMC (2015)’s Code of Conduct and act in patient’s best interests (NMC (2015)). For me, the hardest part was not able to help Ms Lisa. However, I felt that I did help Ms Lisa, only in a small way but could

Ethically, professional nurses are bound by a code of ethics. The American Nurse Association (ANA) Code of Ethics, guides the ethical behavior of the nursing profession. When considering incidence and prevalence of patient falls, nurses are ethically bound to provide safe patient care. Provision three of the ANA Code of Ethics discusses the nurse role as an advocate and to assure patient safety. Professionally and ethically this provision

Patient safety is a concern in the hospital setting. Missed nursing care due to high nurse patient ratios, or staffing issues leads to patient falls. Patient falls tend to be a big issue and expensive matter for hospitals nationwide. This paper will focus on a qualitative research article regarding missed nursing care, staffing, and patient falls. Included will be a summary of the research, methods and research used in the study, significance of the research findings, ethical considerations, and a conclusion.

A fall is a lethal event that results from an amalgamation of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors which predispose an elderly person to the incident (Naqvi et al 2009). The frequency of hospital admission due to falls for older people in Australia, Canada, UK and Northern Ireland range from 1.6 to 3.0 per 10 000 population (WHO 2012). The prevalence of senior citizen’s falls in acute care settings varies widely and the danger of falling rises with escalating age or frailty. Falls of hospitalized older adults are one of the major patient safety issues in terms of morbidity, mortality, and decreased socialization

Tzeng and Yin (2008) state that nurses assume the responsibility and are liable when a patient falls in their care. Nurses spend the most time with patients at their bedside; however, nurses don’t have any

Another day of my clinical placement 420 in orthopaedic unit began on July 4, 2015. I received my patient and started to research a patient history and medications. At 0700 a shift report started, I received information that my patient had fall at night shift without witnesses. By the policy of Providence Healthcare a patient who had fall without witnesses should be automatically monitored for head injury therefore, a Glasgow Coma Scale was initiated by previous nurse: every 15 minutes, then every hour, every two hours, and every 4 hours. This scale is to check and monitor level of consciousness which possibly may decline after head injury. At this day we had a student as a "nurse in charge", she volunteered to come with me to patient room and to supervise my work. For this particular patient close monitoring of vital signs and neurologic assessment required. I explained to the patient the purpose of frequent health assessment and started to work. Close patient monitoring in addition to all daily routine activities was challenging to me because I never had a patient with this diagnosis. Despite my explanation of the purpose of frequent assessments patient stated that "I am fine, do not feel any discomfort, there is no need for that". While assessing patient she keep asking a lot of questions such as why so many time why do I need to drink more than one mouthful of water with my tablets, what these tablets for, why do I need to wait few minutes after

During the home health observation day, there were several opportunities to observe a variety of patients with varying levels of functioning ability, different illnesses, and different needs and levels of interaction with the nurse. The first patient seen was a seventy-three year old Caucasian female with an ulcer on her right heel. Several weeks prior, she had scratched her left leg and she also had several small wounds on her left leg. The orders were to clean and redress the ulcer. She has a history of end stage renal disease, pneumonia, weakness, diabetes, dialysis, and right hip fracture. Upon entering the home, the patient was found to be sitting in a wheel chair in the living room watching television with her husband close by her side. She greeted the nurse with a smile and began to update her on her current condition. Her heel was “hurting” and she rated her pain an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. She also had some “swelling” that she could not “get to go away; because, she could not get up and walk. They need to fix my foot so that I can get up and get around.” She told the nurse that she had been to see the doctor “yesterday” and the doctor had given her a written order that she wanted her to see. The order was written for an evaluation for a soft pressure shoe fitting. The nurse read the order to

Falling is inevitable at some point in life, and although most of the time falls are not serious, some can be life-threatening. Falls are a danger to both physical and psychological well-being because they may diminish a person’s ability to maintain an active and independent lifestyle.1 There are many factors that place individuals at risk for falls such as age, muscle weakness, difficulty with balance or walking, psychological diagnosis, and several medical conditions.1,2 Approximately one-third of people over the age of 65 fall at least once a year.3 Individuals that are status post stroke are at an increased risk of falls, making falls assessment and prevention a common priority for clinicians treating this population.1,2 Therefore, to direct the experimental methods and build on a basis of previous literature on this topic, the search began using OneSearch, CINAHL, PubMed, and