Cranial Nerve One Nursing Implications

[katie0416]

Hey! Im doing a class project on the cranial nerves and my group has been assigned cranial nerve 1. We have to answer a number of questions and one is what are the nursing implications for cranial nerve 1? Despite us thinking this would be and easy question this question has been so hard to answer! So im looking for anyones help in answering it. So far we have :

- the nurse will need something aromatic to test the sense of smell with (coffee, vanilla, cinnamon)

- the nurse will need some idea of if the patient will be able to process the smell and be able to identify it

- the nurse will need to report if the patient cannot smell

- the nurse will need to provide safety measures for the client and be sure that the client has safety measures at home to prevent injury (i.e. fire protection - he wont be able to smell smoke)

If anyone can think of anything else - that would be awesome!

[BabyLady, BSN, RN]

Hey, I know that Wikipedia.....you can't use that as a source for your project.

However, sometimes it's good at giving you a place to start. It lists each cranial nerve and exactly what structure it goes with. Also, check out the references at the bottom...many times they come from professional journals or professional journal websites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranial_nerves

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

nursing implications are nursing interventions. they come in 4 varieties:

• assess/monitor/evaluate/observe (to evaluate the patient's condition)
  
• care/perform/provide/assist (performing actual patient care)
  
• teach/educate/instruct/supervise (educating patient or caregiver)
  
• manage/refer/contact/notify (managing the care on behalf of the patient or caregiver)
  

so, your nursing implications for cranial nerve #1 would be

• first off, assess it. if you need specifics on how to assess this cn, see the weblinks on this sticky thread: https://allnurses.com/nursing-student-assistance/health-assessment-resources-145091.html especially the ucsd practical guide to clinical medicine. does cn1 function normally in the patient?
  
• if not, then how do you provide care for the patient with a cn1 deficit? think about what adls need assistance. what do you need your sense of smell for? what if there is a fire? cooking? taste? you might want to do some reading about the sense of smell to find out what a person without it is going to miss and consider not only the great things they will miss, but the safety issues involved (look at maslow's hierarchy of needs-physiological, safety, belonging, self-esteem, autonomy).
  
• what kind of teaching will the patient need about their cn1 deficit?
  
• do any ancillary healthcare personnel need to be involved?
  

true story: i lost the ability to taste salty and sweet things while getting radiation therapy for a parotid tumor 12 years ago. you don't even think about the impact of that on someone. by the time i had figured out what i could eat that had any kind of taste that i could tolerate and like i had lost 43 pounds. you have no idea how bitter chocolate tastes like without the sugar in it or that most foods (canned and frozen) are processed with salt and when you can't taste the salt in them they really have absolutely no taste to them at all.