I have to do a presentation on scleroderma for my adv nursing class. I am having an awful time finding what I need. I need to find the med/surgical methods of treatment, description of the disease, and the nursing management with nursing diagnoses identified. So far I have found very little except it eventually effects all the connective tissue in your body, the word itself means hard skin, it is an autoimmune defect that mostly effects women ages 30-50, some signs and symptoms and thats about all I can find. I have to fill up a 10 minute power point presentation. Can someone please point me in the right direction? I have searched the internet and even emailed the national scleroderma foundation. They really could not help me out either. Thanks in advance for any assistance yall can give me.

Look up above your post....the sticky that says something like searching for info on the web. Good sites there. Hope that helps

This one's pretty good for prevalence, risk factors, and a whole slew of treatments for the various manifestations.

http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic2076.htm

Also, www.careplans.com has a sample care plan for scleroderma, but it looks like you have to subscribe for access to it.

this should get you started:

http://search.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/query?disambiguation=true&function=search&server2=server2&server1=server1&parameter=scleroderma - this is a page of links after doing a search for scleroderma on medline plus. make sure to expand the results because there are more links than are listed.

http://www.fpnotebook.com/rhe27.htm - this is the outline about scleroderma from general practice notebook which lists it's pathophysiology, signs, symptoms, complications and management

Some excellent images on scleroderma for your Powerpoint presentation:

http://images.google.com/images?q=scleroderma&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images

http://dermatlas.med.jhmi.edu/derm/

Other sources of information on scleroderma:

http://www.scleroderma.org/

http://www.scleroderma.org/medical/healthprof.shtm

(This site features a video, "Living Well with Scleroderma"; also features an entire section on scleroderma for health care professionals, with articles, case studies, and abstracts).

http://www.haps.nsw.gov.au/patrsrcs/patsclero/scleroderma.htm

http://www.healthyroads.com/mylibrary/data/ash_ref/htm/art_schleroderma.asp (information presented in an outline-type form, which could easily be converted to Powerpoint)

Nursing Care of Patients with Scleroderma - Nursing Care Plan:

http://www.haps.nsw.gov.au/patrsrcs/patsclero/NrsCrFrm.htm

http://www.haps.nsw.gov.au/patrsrcs/patsclero/nrscr.htm

Scleroderma — Conquering the Unknown by Margaret Hawke, RN, MA

http://community.nursingspectrum.com/MagazineArticles/article.cfm?AID=7738