Symptoms And Treatment Of Patients Essay

In my nursing practice I frequently care for long term elderly residents on ventilators and who suffer from stage 3 or 4 pressure ulcers, diabetic, venous ulcers etc. Instead of simply providing pain medications and wound treatment to ease their pain or giving medications to relax them, I wanted to learn ways to enhance the comfort of these residents. This led me to learn more about Katherine Kolcaba’s theory of comfort. I found her theory to be useful in understanding the theory of comfort. Hence as a nurse, it became important for me to analyze, evaluate and research more on its applicability in the world of nursing and also in other health care disciplines.

General: no history of weight change, fever or chills, weakness, fatigue, or change in appetite;

Diagnostic procedure: a procedure performed to obtain information needed to make a diagnosis and treatment plan.

The comfort theory is a nursing theory that was first developed in the 1990s by Katharine Kolcaba. The Theory of Comfort considers patients to be individuals, families, institutions, or communities in need of health care (Petiprin, 2015). The environment in which this theory can be applied is in any aspect of the patient, family, or institutional surroundings that can be controlled by a nurse or a patient’s loved one by means to enhance their comfort. Health is considered to be optimal functioning in the patient, as defined by the patient, group, family, or community (Kolcaba, 2005).

"The sources of stress for and threats to patients arise from circumstances of the hospital setting, the behaviour of hospital staff, the patients' own behaviour and the built hospital environment. Although anxiety and distress are negative states that most people would choose to avoid anyway, they are particularly relevant when their influence on physical recovery is examined. The various ways in which stress can slow recovery and in which buffers against stress can speed recovery are of central importance to the training of

One fateful day at the end of June in 1998 when I was spending some time at home; my mother came to me with the bad news: my parent's best friend, Tommy, had been diagnosed with brain cancer. He had been sick for some time and we all had anxiously been awaiting a prognosis. But none of us were ready for the bumpy roads that lay ahead: testing, surgery, chemotherapy, nausea, headaches, and fatigue. Even loud music would induce vomiting. He just felt all around lousy.

It is my personal belief that environment plays a considerable role in the patient’s short term and long-term wellbeing. When nurses acknowledge the environment that the patient is interacting in while receiving their care we know this greatly impacts the overall successfulness of the care plan. The patient’s feelings must be

The problem identified by the researchers in this study, was the immobility of patients in hospital settings. Immobility of patients while hospitalized, for illness or surgery,

Patients and family members in medical intensive care units experience pain and anxiety while overcoming illness and disease. Nightingale was one of the first nurses to recognize that the relationship between health and comfort is strong and direct (Peterson & Bredow, 2013, p. 194). Kolcaba’s theory of comfort addresses the need for nurses to provide patients and families with relief, ease, and transcendence to facilitate health-seeking behavior (McEwen & Wills, 2011, p. 234). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Kolcaba’s theory of comfort (CT) using the Synthesized Method described by McEwen and Wills (2011) and to describe how this theory can be applied in practice.

The developmental stages of the mid range theory of comfort are discussed in this article, which includes its philosophic orientation and its inductive, deductive, and retroductive reasoning. Other steps that are described are the concept analysis of comfort, the operationalization of the outcome of patient comfort, the application of the theory in previous nursing studies, and the evaluation of the current theory as it has been adapted for outcomes research. This article is a guide that shows how a concept grows, becomes embedded in theory, is tested, and is adapted for the rapidly changing health care environment. The theory of comfort

TAVI (Trans-catheter Aortic Valve Implantation) or TAVR (Trans-catheter Aortic Valve replacement) were first performed by Alan Cribier in the year 2002, later approved in 2007(Europe)

As a largely a visual world, pictures, television, movies and billboards fill our society; what we read and hear is beginning to not have the same resonance as it once did. This ever changing society presents a multitude of positives and oftentimes, negatives. This is especially true for populations with health ailments that are not discernibly physical. For when we can’t see an ailment, we are not as sensitive to it. Take for instance you are walking down a street and a blind man is making his way towards you. You take notice of him- you can’t help not to. His glasses and walking cane are obvious indicators of his condition. But for someone with ailments that don’t necessarily show on the outside, people are far less sensitive.

A twist on the "patient's perspective" approach is to describe a time when medicine failed to save or heal someone close to you. The purpose of this tactic would not of course be to rail against the medical profession, but rather to show how a disappointing loss inspired you to join the struggle against disease and sickness.

Ute Ziegler, a research associate who conducts research through design, uses the control theory to support promoting control for patients. “The control theory describes the importance, for the welfare of patients...of being able to influence their immediate environment to compensate for a perceived helplessness…” (Ziegler 56). Patients are forced to relinquish their control during their hospital stay; the hospital not only makes decisions on the patient's behalf, but also takes control over the the patient's surroundings (Ziegler 55). This lack of control can increase a patient's stress and affect their well-being. Stress can lead to depression, a change in eating habits, or a weakened immune system (Ulrich 100). Providing patients with control

The treatment of physical and mental problems has undergone a rapid change in the past few decades. An increasing number of bodily and behavioural symptoms now have a recognised medical diagnosis and corresponding treatment. Sociologists have attributed these changes to the process of medicalization, wherein “non-medical problems come to be defined and treated as if they were medical issues” (McLennan, McManus & Spoonley 2009: 271). Medicalization is an ongoing, gradual process which occurs through the social construction of new diseases by groups such as health professionals (Conrad 2007: 4). It can be argued that medicalization is an active and passive process by which diseases are constructed in an attempt to find treatments for patients; and that diseases can be ‘socially’ constructed as well as ‘corporately’ constructed by companies to create a profitable market of consumers. At the micro level of society, medicalization in the Western world has been influenced by liberal notions of individualization which has extended to some parts of the health sector. At the macro level, medicalization has been buoyed by the process of the professionalization, expansion of state monopoly over the health profession and religious and political social movements. Although some academics argue that the medicalization of society is less significant than the process of “de-medicalization”, there is clear evidence that the process of medicalization is intensifying and outstripping the rate