One time the charge nurse asked me to turn this patient who was comatose and could not close his eyes.
He had no curtain and the sun was glaring in. I told her, "I did not turn him because the sun is in his eyes...."
She agreed with me.
Later on in another nursing home, I found a stroke patient who could not move and who was postitioned with
the sun burning her eyes out. One charge nurse had already asked us not to leave her like this and no one could remember.
Everyone who does patient care should try facing into the sun with your eyes shut when it's glaring in the window and see how many seconds you can stay there. This is memorable and instensely painful.
The last time I found a patient stuck this way I wrote a note to the DoN and alerted everyone to it.
I said I would call DHS if I found her this way again. From then on, they always turned her back to the sun.
Even with the curtain shut, it still can hurt their eyes.
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Good response m/writer Agree!!! Why do people come on to posts with such phases? Why bother; to look like the fool they are?
Logical deduction! That is what is called "critical thinking" , a nurse/CNA or the dog catcher can surmise this solution. The original contributor to this post is lacking simple common sense.
Please don't leave helpless patients facing into a window where the sun is glaring in. Please move them into another room or at least get them away from that window. Thanks.
Oh, and a visiting agency aide should not have to ask the nursing staff to get that patient on a turning schedule meant for sun protection. Also, how am I supposed to make sure they stick to the schedule when I am gone.
What if someone does not get back to turn them in time?
They should not even have the sun in their face for a few minutes.
I have nothing against patients being turned to look out the window if the sun is not right there. What I'm talking about is patients who not only are forced to keep their eyes shut because the sun hurts their eyes, but I walk in and they are covered in perspiration and their face is beet red from the heat. I think putting things on them should only be a last resort.
I also sit in the sun. The difference is, I stay there of my own volition. When someone tries to force me to stare into the sun, it makes me resent them and is intensely painful.
It is not just their eyes but the results of the heat on their skin.
Even if they are on thier back, the sun will still be on their skin and eyes.
The patient still needs to be turned. Turning from back to side away from the window is okay, but they still need more rotation. Why not place a wash cloth dry or moist over the patients eyes to protect them. I honestly don't see why this patient can't be turned to look out the window.
If the eyes are kept moist and healthy through eye drops and frequent eye care it shouldn't be that huge of an issue. I hang outside in the sun all the time without special eye protection. I maybe able to blink my eyes to keep them moistened, but there are other options.
Threatening to call DHS for this is a bit over the top. What this patient needs is a good careplan that addresses a good turning schedule with eye protection.
I hope people know that tape all by itself is not enough. Try facing into direct sun with your eyes shut and just closing your eyes is not enough. It still hurts.
this is just scary, Hello what would you want done if it were you. You need to turn your pt and you can close the eyes yourself and tape them or something. I fill bad for the guy even without the light shinning in his eyes. Try holding your eyes open for a min and it is very painfull. This should be a part of basic care that you give to your pt.
Please don't leave helpless patients facing into the sun. We are not leaving him there until sundown, we are leaving him until the sun is out of that window. Keep him dry and he probably won't get skin breakdown.
Turn him upside down in the bed during daylight hours.
I'm amazed someone had to post this to figure out a solution. Think about it for a minute, and fix the problem! Patient is probably still lying there thinking "I can't wait for sundown."
I would turn the bed in the room so that the patient is not facing the window.
The problem with this is that in some patients' rooms, they are sandwiched into their half of the room so it is literally impossible to move the bed.
In some places, I would have been thought to have incredible nerve and audacity if I was found moving someone's bed and all my reasons would have been ignored.
Good for you for being such an excellent advocate for your patients! One question/suggestion: What about using a sleep mask in addition to curtains? They're pretty thick. That would protect the patient's eyes while allowing them to have a wider range of positions available to minimize the risk of pressure sores. I know you wouldn't want the fabric pressed up against the patient's eyeballs, but it seems like there should be a way to make it work.
I think a sleep mask might work well in some situations. It depends on how hot the sun is.
I walked into a patients room and found her covered with sweat and her face beet red and I found her this way over and over and the staff was treating this like a minor inconvenience.
If the sun heats up the room too much then a sleep mask all alone might aggravate the problem.
Also, I knew one lady that might have resented having one of these put on her. I could not convince her family to close the shudders in her room to keep the sun out and she could not talk or move (one reason I started this thread)
Please don't leave your patients in a room where the sun is glaring in. Thanks.
The doctors, DoN and charge nurses need to plan for things like this and the CNAs should nothave to ask them.
How many times do you leave a helpless patient in a bad situation and then blame the CNAs when they can't find a solution?
When a CNA comes to you and says, "I want this one to be in a room on the other side of the hall," (like I asked the charge nurse one day) would you be thinking they're a fool? Would you ignore their requests?
How would you get the staff members to see that it's abusive to leave them in the sun? The real issue here is not about the mentality of the CNAs who express concern for the patients and don't know what to do.
A lot of the things they are suggesting here are not adequate and thank God I started this thread.
If I thought it not worth my time or attention...I would not comment on it...
Perhaps all LTC facilities could in the future be built underground.
But if we're not just worried about their eyes, if we can't have their skin in the sun either, then by not turning them, their back is facing the sun, which has just as much skin as their front being exposed to the sun.
rn/writer, RN
9 Articles; 4,168 Posts
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