Introduction
Health assessment, which aims at evaluating the appropriateness of therapy, is an essential component of the entire treatment. Nurses have developed approaches in order to evaluate the strategies of the assessment that should be used to obtain reliable results. These approaches are published in the form of articles in order to avail them to other people who need the pre-requisite knowledge. This paper will evaluate and critique an article that was published in the Journal of Neuroscience Nursing on February in the year 2004. The article, which is referred to a Long-Term Treatment Optimization in Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis, was written by Lorraine Denis, Marie Namey, and Kathy Costello among others. In overview, it uses Disease Modifying Therapies and assumes a nursing approach in its procedure and executions.
Summary of the Article
Essentially, the focus of this article is to report on the findings of the health assessment for patients with multiple sclerosis. It reports in details about the strategies, tools, and procedures that were used during the assessment. It, also, presents the rationale of using the strategies, tools and procedure in the entire assessment.
During the assessment, the nurses conducted an initial evaluation of the psychosocial factors that can affect the preparedness of a patient to therapy. The article argues that the psychosocial factors, which purportedly affect the final outcomes of a patient, should be evaluated in the process of selecting the participants. Then, the involved nurses and neurologists tested whether the patients were ready for treatment using the trans-theoretical model that passes through five stages of determination. The nurses would determine the readiness of the patient to receive treatment and decide on whether to induce the treatment. There were various tools that were used in order to facilitate the assessment including the utilization of Gratiramer Acetate that reduce the relapse rate for some patients. The use of Glatiramer was a strategy to reduce the progression of sustained disability of the patients. Although there were many strategies used by the nurses, this was one of the most essential strategies that were used in this process of assessment.
Evaluation of the Article
It is necessary to state that the entire assessment, which needs both credit and recommendation for improvement, was satisfactorily structured to achieve its intended purpose. In this light, there are some procedures that need to be credited in this process. For example, the initial assessment was a tactical ideology that ensured the credibility of the assessment. It ensured that the patients that were selected for therapy would respond treatment. They, also, ensured that the selected patients were ready for treatment by assessing their psychosocial factors that would affect them during treatment. This ensured that the selected participants would not stop in the process of assessment. However, the self injection training is a tricky aspect of this assessment and treatment. In this light, the nurses should allocate additional time to the training since the program should be perfect. In fact, they do not have chances for mistakes in this program. They should allow patients to move out of the training room with deficient skills relating to self injection. This is because the patients should learn to inject themselves in a manner that resembles the doctor’s skills of administering drugs.
The article is quite interesting since it focuses on a particular group of patients that are suffering from multiple sclerosis. Focusing on specific patients is more helpful that all patients since there are special factors that affect them. This makes the assessment become much effective for them. The assessment strategy was very helpful due to the initial assessment that was carried out in order to measure the fitness of patients to the assessment. This ensured that it did not involve people who could not respond to treatment leading to poor result.
In light of explanation, the article has explained all the steps that were involved in the process of assessment. These steps include the initial assessment, the trans-theoretical model, readiness for treatment and the treatment itself. It has included the exceptions that can exist in the process of assessment and the way of handling them. However, more articles should be written about the assessment due to the ideology of relativism. The concept of relativism argues that different people have diverse opinions about issues of the same nature. This implies that subsequent articles, which are written by different people, will generate other opinions that can be merged with this article. The holistic information will be of great help to various groups of people including the neurologist, nurses and the patients suffering from sclerosis. The neurologist will have prerequisite knowledge about their future expectations while the patients will understand their situation.
Conclusion
The article has mainly focused on critical aspects of health assessment. In this light, it has touched on the concept of initial assessment that dealt with pre-evaluation of therapy. It has dealt with criteria of selecting patients for assessment, educating patients about self injections, long term assessment and long term monitoring. Essentially, these are the key aspects of an assessment of health for patients especially when they are suffering from sclerosis. The article has satisfactorily tackled the assessment procedure in a manner that can provide sufficient information to learners and practitioners.
References
Denis, L., Namey, M., Costello, K., & Frenette, J. (2004). Long-Term Treatment Optimization in Individuals with Multiple Sclerosis Using Disease-Modifying Therapies: A Nursing Approach. Journal of Neuroscience Nursing , 36(1), 10-22.