Introduction
Kristy and her family are experiencing varied difficulties due to Kristy’s accident; these factors are classified as biological, psychological, spiritual, and cultural. The physical factors include pain, swelling, bruising, and potential infection resulting from an accident. Biological factors are directly attributable to Kristy rather than family as a whole. The psychological factors include tension, uncertainty, desolation, and anxiety. Spiritual factors include a sense of loss, confusion, and uncertainty. The cultural factors illustrate the availability of different cultural perspectives on injury and healing for rural residents from those of urban environments. Urban residents believe injury and healing are attributed to medical responsiveness, while rural residents are more attracted to traditional healing procedures.
The biological factors illustrate that Kristy’s pain is managed with IV morphine, but this may lead to a more significant pain following surgery. The medical application needs to be perfect based on the injury to manage this pain accurately. Swelling, which is likely to occur due to the injury and surgery, may cause more pain and discomfort. Furthermore, Bruising may be present due to the nature of the accident, which can be painful and unsightly. There is a potential for infection following any injury. The family should be cautious of the possibility of infection, such as redness, pain, fever, and drainage from the injury site (Vieira et al., 2021). The family may consume a lot of time in managing Kristy’s status, which can drain their emotional imbalances.
The psychological factors are mostly attributed to stress in reaction to traumatic events such as injuries and accidents. When a person experiences accidents, their body releases hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones regulate the body’s internal activities to deal with the emergency. However, they can cause a lot of emotional imbalances, for example nervousness and prickliness. Anxiety is common in traumatic events. When a person experiences a traumatic event, the brain releases an adrenaline hormone, resulting in physical and emotional factors such as anxiety and sadness (Holland et al., 2019). Stress can cause unease and worry; it can lead to a lack of sleep or difficulty concentrating.
Dejection is another common reaction to accidents; when a person faces a traumatic event, the brain releases a hormone known as cortisol responsible for irritability. Generally, despondency can lead an individual to feel tense and unhappy, thus making it difficult to enjoy life (Indra, 2018). Kristy’s husband has been forced to stay at home to care for their kid and family property. Kristy is confused, which may lead to more anxiety between her and their family.
The spiritual factors include experiencing a sense of loss as a result of an accident; Kristy has been hospitalized, letting her husband do primary duties, thus creating a sense of failure within the family setup. This makes a further sense of uncertainty since her husband had to take on more obligations than usual. They may be unsure what the future holds and what changes may occur in Kristy’s health.
The cultural factors define how different it is in handling traumatic events such as accidents and injuries in rural and urban areas. Rural residents may believe that accidents are likely to occur and may strongly believe in the power of prayer and traditional healing methods. Rural residents do not seek medication attention to care for injuries, however, they focus on the traditional approaches for healing.
The RLTP model of nursing can be used in solving Kristy’s case and helping the family to cope with these factors following her accident. The model helps in understanding the impact of the personal injury on the family and can help identify the needs of the patient and provide the best approach during those times (Lewis, 2020). It can be used to develop a positive care plan to address various needs when they arise.
The Legal Concepts of Consent, the Doctrine of Necessity, and Enduring Guardianship
The process of informing a patient about risks, benefits, and alternatives of procedure by a health care provider is known as informed consent. The patient must be able to decide whether to proceed or not to proceed with a medical operation (Tobia, 2021). Medical practitioners have an ethical and legal obligation to provide informed consent to their patients. This means patients have control of what happens to their bodies.
The doctrine of necessity is a legal theory that allows extraconstitutional actions by the administrative authorities, such as efforts to restore order which are found in constitutional. Even if these actions would violate established norms (Johnson et al., 2018), it covers the private person’s ability to break the law if the activities were geared towards saving lives and preventing much more serious harm.
Enduring guardship means choosing someone to make health and lifestyle decisions on your behalf if you lose the ability to do so. It requires the appointment of a person you can trust to make the best decisions (Waller et al., 2018). A person may give a guardian a direction about exercising the decision-making functions assigned to them. According to the case of the enduring patient, guardianship is not applicable since Kristy is still confused. Still, the husband can act as a guardian to sign consent as long as he understands the dangers and benefits of surgery.
Preoperative Nursing Actions
Preoperative care is the initial stage of surgery; it includes the responsibility of medical practitioners to educate patients and guarantee that they are ready for approaching surgery. Any error before surgery may affect the whole process of surgery. This indicates the importance of preoperative care; setting up the patient before the medical procedure is essential to both patient and nurses. Giving instructions to the patient and families is one of the most recognized parts of nursing care (Gürler et al., 2022). The preoperative nursing intervention performed during the procedure is very important and is widely required before any surgery activity.
The first preoperative intervention ensures that patients remain on non-per Orem or NPO. This helps prevent food or liquid substances from entering the lungs, which can cause more complications such as aspiration. Aspiration occurs when a sense enters the airways, which are life-threatening. The second most common activity is to check for jewelry such as rings. There is a need to remove jewelry that can intervene with the procedure of an imagining study. Dentures are also drawn to ensure proper operation by an anesthesiologist. The endotracheal tube is usually inserted into the mouth to serve as the temporary airway for oxygen to enter the lungs, thus preventing hypoxemia during the surgery process and helping in avoiding complications.
The third nursing action is to bathe a patient to minimize the chances of infections, and the nurse had to do this by removing the patients’ clothes. Bathing helps in curtailing chances of getting contamination. This is because the skin is very vulnerable to external bacteria (Mendes et al., 2018). A patient must wear a gown or surgery clothing, allowing nurses to conduct clean surgery-free from infection. After surgery, all patient clothing should be clean before use. This helps create a guarantee of the patient’s safety after surgery.
Abnormal Cues in Kristy’s Postoperative Nursing Assessment
Kristy’s postoperative evaluation includes three major inappropriate cues which should be considered before any further decisions to release her from the operation care. First, Kristy complains that she feels unwell. Kristy’s recent surgery is a major pathopsychological component that has led to her feeling sick for a longer period. Due to the anesthetic and stress of the operation, the patient may experience nausea and vomiting as the common side effects. Kristy’s pharmacological aspect that has caused her severe pain is that she has been given pain medicine (fentanyl) for a longer period (Mulkey, 2021). Generally, nausea and vomiting are the common side effects of pain medicines.
Kristy is a little tired but easy to rouse and oriented to person; however, confused about time and place. This is the ideal factor resulting from family issues and responsibilities attributed to her husband. The medicinal application cannot fully solve this case; however, constant administration of physiotherapy activities will eventually solve these challenges. The pain score of 7/10 indicates the need to administer pain relievers and prevent further exposure to the external infection.
Kristy is wearing a honeycomb-patterned long opposite dressing on her right hip. This is due to a pathologic reason. The sauce protects the surgical site and aids in quick recovery. This abnormal cue is the basic factor while focusing on quickening the healing process. To promote a faster healing process, there is a need to prevent surgery sites from infection and provide an avenue for better dressing activities. However, this is directly attributed to the nature of accidents and injuries. Patients with severe damage should be taken care of, considering the need for a quicker and more accurate healing process.
Kristy’s bed is to be kept clean until the physiotherapist scrutinizes her. Bed rest is a critical aspect that enables the patient to recover swiftly and properly. Kristy’s pathophysiological factor that led her to undergo rigorous bed rests is attributed to the fact that she underwent hip surgery. In promoting an effective healing process, the key idea is to determine the patient’s ability to cope with the surrounding environment (Jorge et al.,2022). The severity of the injury determines the nature of bed rest. Kristy underwent hip surgery, which required constant monitoring; physiotherapy examination would allow her to recover quickly and prevent further exportations to infections. Kristy’s evaluation of lower limbs indicated consensually cold feet. This has been attributed to the immobility of her lower limbs after surgery.
To effectively regulate abnormal cues resulting from postoperative nursing experience, Kristy would benefit from the various nursing interventions such as keeping an eye on Kristy’s pain level and giving her pain medicine as required. The pain should be scrutinized postoperatively to ensure she is relaxed and avoid future complications from the surgery. This calls for the closer monitoring and management of patient medical care. She may also be given pain medicine if her excessive pain level requires more immediate attention. Maintaining a clean and dry surgery site calls for closer nursing care, preventing infections and aiding in faster healing. The other consideration is to keep Kristy hydrated. This can be done by drinking a lot of fluids after surgery to avoid any dehydration and aid in recovery.
The various variables within Kristy’s surgery have led to the emergence of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV). Which is a frequent complication after surgery; however, PONV is treatable by applying several antiemetic medicines (Burdeu et al., 2021). Normally, the patient may undergo various abnormal cues based on the environment and the nature of the injury. Nursing care is required to ensure persisted tread towards healing. The environmental factors can delay healing, and the doctor-patient relationship is important in addressing such challenges.
The postoperative period is usually a critical time that requires reestablishment of the patient physiologic balance, pain management, and prevention of complications. Focusing on nursing care should be the primary goal for the postoperative period. To achieve crucial nursing care, there is a need to perform a careful examination and immediate intervention activities to assist patients in functioning optimally swiftly, securely, and comfortably. This can be achieved by restoring body homeostasis and discomfort alleviation.
Kristy’s health status required constant patient assessment, including vascular level and exposure, which should be implemented by the nurse when transferring the patient from the operating room to the recovery room. Every time the patient is moved, the nurse should consider the location of the operating incision to prevent further exposure to the infections (Burdeu et al., 2021). Constant adjustment to the obstructions on the drains and other wounds should be made per patient status. This helps in monitoring patient status and improving recovery activities. Assisting the patient to achieve full recovery requires changing bed position gradually, taking care not to tire the patient. Initiating and encouraging the patient to perform bed exercises leads to improved circulation, thus hastening the healing process. This can only be achieved if there is a strong nurse-patient relationship.
Conclusion
Postoperative actions are important in providing best approach to patient healing. These activities can result to spiritual, physical and social healing. Patients with postoperative impediments consume considerably more resources. Inventiveness that targets anticipation of these events, even if costly to implement, would meaningfully improve quality of care and patient safety. Completeness of surgery is secondary to patient safety and medical practitioners should be mindful of postoperative activities guided by the nursing laws and regulations.
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