The Promotion and Supporting Sleep Aspect of Basic Nursing Care - Essay Example

Name Course Affiliation Instructor Date of Submission Promotion and Supporting Sleep Introduction Nursing assessment is the initial stage of the nursing process whereby the medical nurses strive to relate with their patients. The nursing profession aims at determining the patient’s health condition before allowing them to seek attendance from the physician. This enables the physician to review a brief and comprehensive patient’s medical background and health history before providing them with any form of treatment. In providing effective treatment, the physician has to understand their patients and the rate at which their body conditions respond to treatment. Nursing assessments further assists in determining whether the patient suffers from multiple health conditions of which they may be not aware of (Wilson & Giddens, p6). Therefore, these assessments assist the physician in determining the health status of the patient and also develop a communication link between the doctors and nurses. This essay paper aims at discussing the promotion and supporting sleep aspect of basic nursing care aimed at improving the quality of services provided by nurses. It will also discuss on the rationales beneath nursing management decisions and how the decision making process can be improved. Appropriate Nursing Assessments As indicated earlier, nursing assessments gather the basic medical information required by a physician in providing a patient treatment. Due to this significant role played by the patient’s assessment, nurses are required to ensure that the gathered information is correct and up to date. Wilson and Giddens suggest that to achieve this end, nurses are required to use an assessment checklist that will assist them in collecting the relevant information pertaining to the patient (23). Sleep enhances a balance in an individual’s health conditions thus improving one’s health condition. Previous medical researchers have revealed that an individual’s lifestyle is directly related to their health conditions (Wilson & Giddens, p14). Sleep has also been singled out as a common factor that determines the wellness of the human body. Sleep enables the body to rest and recover energy lost during the active hours. As a result, individuals that do not get sufficient rest suffer from fatigue and this goes a long way in determining their health conditions. These conditions do not necessarily require a physician’s intervention but rather a change in one’s lifestyle. Therefore, when conducting patient assessments, nurses should seek to inform themselves on the patient’s lifestyle. This will enable the nurses to identify whether the patient actually gets adequate sleep or not. In the event whereby the patient does not receive adequate sleep, the nurse should seek to understand why the patient fails to get sufficient rest. In gathering this information, the nurse can use the general health questionnaire as an information gathering tool. Nursing assessment checklists are other tools that the nurses can utilise and provide the physician with a brief summary of the patient’s health condition (Reite, Weissberg & Ruddy, p7). With the assessment checklists, nurses can be able to note the patient’s sleep schedule to identify whether the patient has a regular or spontaneous sleeping schedule. Varying sleeping hours can contribute to negative health conditions as the body is not able to adjust itself semi-automatically. By recording the patient’s ability to sleep and sleeping hours, the nurses will be able to fully assess the patient’s health conditions and identify the source of poor health conditions. Actual Nursing Diagnosis Medical practitioners strongly advocate for adequate sleep in adults for about 6-8 hours daily. According to them, sleep is very vital in achieve health balance and normal functioning of the human body (Wilson & Giddens, p11). Majority of the world population unknowingly suffer from sleep disorders and as a result they do not seek medical intervention. Sleep disorders are classified into three classes namely lack of sleep, disturbed sleep and excessive sleep. Insomnia, sleep apnea and narcolepsy are examples of sleep disorders according to the stated classes respectively (Lavie, Pillar & Malhotra, p39). These disorders require proper diagnosis if they are to be managed effectively. Sleep is highly susceptible to changes within the human body and blood content. In order to properly diagnose a patient with sleep disorders, it is important to understand the number of factors that affect sleep. These factors may include the consumption of antidepressants and caffeinated drinks that hinder the sleep process. It is therefore important for the nurse to understand the sleep process and how brain and blood changes affect the process (Lavie, Pillar & Malhotra, p21). All these information should be gathered and analysed during the nurse assessment phase. In diagnosing insomnia, the patient’s medical and health history is important as it gives the physician a rough picture of the patient’s health condition. The physician will be able to view various forms of treatment made available to the patient in the past and their response to them. They will then be able to decide on the factors that cause insomnia for example psychological or physical illnesses and the nature of the condition’s occurrence. The patient’s medical background information has to be collected during the assessment stage where they will provide details of previous substance abuse or health conditions. Sleep tests are common in diagnosing insomnia as well as diaries that record the patient’s sleep patterns (Lavie, Pillar & Malhotra, p134). Varied sleep patterns and reduced sleeping hours provides sufficient evidence that the patient is suffering from insomnia. Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder whereby the patient sleeps for quite a number of hours especially during daytime. Patients suffering from this disorder experience interrupted sleeps during the night. Symptoms of narcolepsy include loss of muscle function, temporary paralysis when waking up, hallucinations and displaying automatic behaviour during sleep (Reite, Weissberg & Ruddy, p131). The disorder is believed to be genetic among patients and thus it is very necessary to take the patient’s health background into consideration before diagnosing them. With the four symptoms present, making a diagnosis is very easy but it can prove to be a difficult task when most of the symptoms are absent. The polysomnogram test however can provide the physician with accurate results as it records the brain waves of a patient when they are asleep. It also monitors the nerve and muscle function of the patient during their sleep that might assist in identifying other sleep disorders experienced by the patient (Reite, Weissberg & Ruddy, p136). The nurse’s assessment should provide information on how fast the patient falls asleep and whether they wake up often during their night sleep. If the responses to these questions are positive, the patient is suffering from narcolepsy. Nursing Interventions In treating insomnia, the nurse’s intervention should be embarked on educating the patient on the importance of sleep hygiene. Sleep hygiene involves preparing a sleeping schedule with constant sleep times and hours (Lavie, Pillar & Malhotra, p143). This will enable the body to balance its functions and enable the patient recover fully from the used up energy. However, sleep is not the only determining factor as patients will be required to change their lifestyles. Nurses are required to educate the patient on how antidepressants and caffeinated drinks inhibit their sleep and often a cause for insomnia. These substances directly affect the blood components and in turn affect the brain activities making it difficult for the patient to receive the much needed sleep. Patients should try to engage in relaxation enhancing activities before bedtime as this will slow down their brain functioning (Reite, Weissberg & Ruddy, p138). These activities may include watching television or reading a novel before bed time. With slowed down brain functioning, the patient will slowly retire to bed without experiencing frequent interruptions during their sleep. However, in some instances, medical drugs such as sedatives should be used on a short-term basis although some disorders may require long-term drug administration. The administration of medical drugs should be the final option since insomnia is a sleep disorder and not an illness. To treat insomnia, only a change in lifestyle and sleep discipline is required. The treatment of narcolepsy differs from insomnia because narcolepsy as a sleep disorder has been less studied compared to insomnia. Therefore, as cure and therapy for insomnia have been provided, a cure for narcolepsy is yet to be discovered. In treating narcolepsy, nurses can only provide medical drugs that manage the symptoms. Similar to insomnia, sleep discipline is very important whereby the patient’s are required to maintain a sleep schedule. This will enable them stabilise their sleep patterns and realise immense improvement in their symptoms (Reite, Weissberg & Ruddy, p138). Reduced daytime naps will also assist the patient as they will give them adequate time to rest. Individuals suffering from narcolepsy should avoid consuming heavy meals as they will result into feeling drowsy and they will eventually sleep. This will force them to do away with their sleep schedule and hence jeopardise their treatment therapy. Medical drugs that can be used to treat the symptoms for narcolepsy include stimulants, anti-depressants and central nervous system depressants. These drugs will reduce the patient’s over active brain activities especially after they are asleep and hence reduce their symptoms. The stimulants improve the brain’s and body’s performance while anti-depressants help to deal with the cataplexy symptom (Reite, Weissberg & Ruddy, p132). However, these drugs have dangerous side effects and therefore it is necessary to administer them to the patient in the short term while monitoring their treatment response. A combination of therapeutic and drug administration reduces the symptoms and thus enhances an individual’s recovery from the sleep disorder. This is also vital since there is no medical drug that has been discovered to treat the disorder. Works Cited Lavie, Peretz, Pillar, Giora & Malhotra, Atul. Slp Disorders: Diagnosis, Mngmt & Trtmnt: A Hndbk for Clinicians. Michigan: Informa Health Care, 2002. Reite, Martin, Weissberg, Michael and Ruddy, John. Clinical Manual for Evaluation & Trtmnt of Slp Disorders. Washington: American Psychiatric Pub., 2008. Wilson, F. Susan & Giddens, Jean. Health Assmnt for Nursing Practice, 2ND Ed. Boston: Mosby, 2000. Read More