Ideas for a paper

What works best when asking for help with an assignment is for you to tell us what you're thinking. We don't want to rob you of a good learning opportunity by doing the work for you. Neither do we want to shut the door in your face. The balancing point is for us to help you with what you already have.

So . . . what kinds of things are you thinking about?

Maybe you should start by thinking about the chronic pain itself. Have you started clinicals yet? If you do computer charting you should see a whole menu of choices for addressing pain.

Next, ask yourself what kinds of patients deal with chronic pain. Do you recall seeing any interventions people have used.

Consider age group. What works for a teen might differ from methods used by someone who is eighty.

What do you do when you're dealing with pain? It doesn't have to be chronic. Pain is pain.

Brainstorm this a little and then tell us what you've thought of. Then we might be able to enhance your thoughts a little.

Best wishes.

Hi Mima,

thanks for the brain storming and it was a great help.

I have actually came up with 3 nursing interventions already.

I am working with a young person.

1. Refer the patient to CBT -- cognitive behaviour therapy

2. imagery

3. Pet therapy

I can only do one referral so I pick CBT instead of hypnosis.

Tell me what you think?

I'm Miranda. Mima is what some family members call me.

Okay, let's take a look at your original assignment and see if your ideas fit.

I need some ideas on NURSING INTERVENTIONS for my paper which should go above and beyond the nursing practise you see in the hospital but still within the scope of practise.

1. Refer the patient to CBT -- cognitive behaviour therapy

2. imagery

3. Pet therapy

I have a feeling that you're going to need to dig a little deeper for a NURSING intervention. I could be wrong but that usually means something YOU, the nurse, can do for a patient. You might be able to do the imagery, but referring for CBT and using pet therapy (in the formal sense) don't stack up because you're relying on someone else to supply most of the action.

What can you as a nurse do for your patient or assist them with that doesn't involve handing them off to someone else? Think of things you can do with your hands, items that might provide distraction that you can help them with, changes you can make in the room, etc. The common denominator is that you will be the instrument of the changes that will help them manage their pain.

BTW, the other suggestions might be appropriate for someone dealing with chronic pain, but I think you can find better nursing interventions.

Hope this helps.

There's a whole medical field for pain. The specialists that can sub-specialize in pain medicine include anesthesiologists (they invented it), physical medicine and rehabilitation docs, psychiatrists, and it seems like there's another I can't recall.

Research that and perhaps you can find something adaptable to nurse-dom.

Here's the first fellowship website Yahoo gave me.

http://www.anesthesiology.uci.edu/education_fellowships.shtml

think of simpler things, like following MD order to admin meds, or re-positioning patient, or confirming pain scale is appropriate to patient, or evaluation following interventions--

Be sure to give specific data if possible, like reducing pain from 7 to 5 on 0-10 pain scale as reported by patient.

Here's what i used as my interventions:

1. Use of distraction methods (music, TV) to reduce pain

2. Educate patient on relaxation methods (deep breathing) to reduce pain

3. refer to psychologist to do CBT