Patient's Care: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease - Essay Example

Patient Care Introduction The growth and prevalence of diseases in the society is an issue that should be approached to and handled with great care to ensure that the patient gets the kind of help that they desire. Diseases come in diversity affecting patients in different manners and this is increasing the demands of quality health care. Caregivers are required to employ evidence-based techniques in delivering care to people to ensure for their well being. This has necessitated for them to learn the nature of certain conditions that affect human beings. This paper discusses the issues that relate to a patient suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). It will also offer an insight on the best care that nursing interventions should employ to ensure the well-being of the patient. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a lung disease that progressively affects the lungs of millions of people worldwide. It is characterized by blockage of the regular flow of air making it difficult for an individual to breathe. In most cases, a person with this disease may have chronic bronchitis, emphysema or asthma-like characteristics that result to relatively irreversible obstructive to flow of air in the lungs. The condition diminishes the amount of blood that is oxygenated supplied over other body parts such as the brain. Rationale COPD is a dangerous and life-threatening disease that if left untreated can affect the lungs completely and even lead to death. According to the most recent statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), over 64 million people have the disease and close to three million die from the disease. It is estimated to be the fourth main causes of death in the United States alone. These statistics as predicated by the WHO shows that if left untreated, the disease will be the third largest cause of death by 2030. This shows the urgency that is required to mitigate the effects it will have on the society. This is the main point behind the choice of studying the disease; to come up with better ways of ensuring that such predictions will not have a great impact in the society. The disease is also known to result in heart attacks and its complications can result to severe damage of heart tissues and eventually death. Research has shown that condition is also among the main causes of heart failure in the community and calls immediate actions to mitigate its effects. By cutting off oxygen supply to the body, COPD results in low levels of oxygen in the body and this can affect the normal organ functioning. It can also result to reduced blood floor to other body organs and this can highly affect other organs in the body and can even result in Multiple Organ Failure (MOF), a condition that is difficult to manage. Research has shown that the main causes of this disease can be managed and controlled. Most of the research documents the main risk factors of COPD to be tobacco smoking, inhalation of polluted air, chemicals and dusts inhaled in work places. As seen from the patient being treated, the main cause of the complication was related to his earlier smoking habits. Following this statics, the society should be enlightened on such controllable causes to ensure that the diseases do not prevail. There is need to emphasis on warning people against smoking as this is the main cause of COPD and considering the number of death the disease can lead to. The caregivers should also be enlightened on the main cause of the condition for them to be aware on what to do when dealing with the affected people. Pathophysiology Causes and symptoms The main causes of COPD can be explained from two perspectives. First, it can occur due to a damage of the walls of the air sacs in the lungs. This damage results in the presence of a low total number of air sacs to transfer air to other organs of the body. The lungs are not able to transfer oxygen to the bloodstream or get rid of carbon dioxide produced from the body. This makes the lungs to lose its capability of elasticity and there less flow of air into the lungs is realized. The second cause is related to a high production of mucus that is characterized by prolonged coughing. This makes the lungs to become swollen and also blocked making it difficult for a person to breathe. The main cause that leads to the onset of the above characteristics is tobacco smoke. This includes also includes the effects of passive smoking. WHO approximate that 5.4 million people across the world die yearly for high use of tobacco and this estimates are expected to rise. With severe COPD, complications have been known to result especially on resulting to irregular heartbeat. This is due to the fact that it results to low supply f oxygen into the heart and this makes the muscles of the heart not to function properly. This can eventually result to heart attack (MI) if the conditions are left to prevail (WHO). Treatments COPD does not have any cure currently and calls for interventions that involve the assessment and monitoring of the disease and reduction of risk factors that are involved with it. To prevent the prevalence of the disease, people are advice to reduce exposure to the causative agents such as tobacco as much as possible. The symptoms of the disease can be managed to prevent the disease from becoming worse. Medications that are used in the treatment of the condition include bronchodilators that can help open airways in the lung or the inhalation of some steroids that work by reducing the inflammation of the lungs. The major treatment interventions are given to ensure that breathing problem of the patient is solved given that this is the major causative agent of death in this area. Antibiotics are also given to the patient to avoid the effect of infections that could lead to the onset of other complications such as Left ventricular Failure. Nursing Interventions The first thing that had to be done on the patient was assessment and application of early medication to ensure the stability of the patient before taking any further action. The assessment is necessary to ensure that the correct steps and medications are applied in treating the patient. In the case of the patient under study the nurses had a prior knowledge that the patient had earlier been admitted for Myocardial Infarction (MI) and clearly knew where to start with the tests. The first diagnosis depicted the infection to be related to chest or urinal. However, after more tests, Cerebral Vascular Accident (CVA) was diagnosed and the patient was treated for this. This shows that effective and quality care needs a thorough intervention on tests to ascertain clearly what the main cause of the illness is. This will guide in the formulation of an appropriate plan for intervention as regards treatment and administration of drugs. After treatments, the nurse had to access the patient to ascertain on the effectiveness of their plan as well as what further interventions had to be employed (Hedenstierna et al 2009). Ethical Issues In taking care of a patient with the characteristics that depict this disease, multiple observations must be made to ensure that the all the affected organs are recognized and noted to prevent the severity of the situation. The principles of nursing as it regards the issue of ethical decision making had to be followed. In doing this, a nurse should ensure to observe ethical standards by doing what is expected. The proper prescribed medicine should be given to the patient. Further, there was need to ensure that the patient history is well recorded. As a nurse, one should ensure to record any data of the patient on all observations made as this could be important when the patient is attended on by other colleagues or physicians. The record of the patient under state shows that all observations, tests and scans medication given to the patient were recorded efficiently to help other concerned personnel carry out effective treatment and care. Such information should also be treated as private and only shown to the patient, other physicians and caregivers and the concerned family members (Hedenstierna et al 2009). The patient should also be informed on the kind of interventions that are suggested before making any steps of applying what one thinks is right. For example, in the care of the observed patient, he had reported problems of urinary incontinent especially during the nights. The physicians had suggested the use of a permanent urinary catheter after a scan of the bladder was done. However, the patient had to be informed and this was done only after he had agreed on the same. Such precautions are necessary to avoid any legal confrontations with the patient or any complications as it regards emotions and cultural influences. The decision of the patient should be respected in all nursing interventions to ensure quality care. Physiological Support There was need to ensure continuous and regular checking of the patient to ascertain the extent of care that he needed. The nurses had to monitor the patient physical capabilities as well as the fluid discharge from the body to ascertain the kind of care that he required and the medications that were necessary to prevent any form of infections from affecting the patient further. Regular checkup on the patient were carried out to check whether the patient was able to do some physical tasks alone. He was observed while visiting the toilet to ascertain the capability of visiting the toilet while alone. This was to test his mobility to check the amount of physical exercise required. Antibiotics were also administered to the patient to ensure that there was no treat of infection. The chest was also regularly checked on this matter with the nurses ascertaining any form of pain that could be affecting the patient. Aspirin was also administered as a pain killer to the patient (Hedenstierna et al 2009). With the kind of infections recorded especially as regards urinary incontinent, unsteadiness, unconsciousness and inability to mobilize without care, the care team ascertained that the patient had to be released to home as requested and a team of caregivers were deployed to ensure the well-being of the patient as well as monitor the progress and response to treatment. However, the patient was admitted in the hospital for a certain period of rehabilitation before being discharged. Quality care calls for such interventions to ensure that the patient is stable enough to receive treatment as well as continuous evaluation of the needs of the patient as such concerns are important in deciding the course of action to be taken (Hedenstierna et al 2009) Conclusion World over, it is recognized that the mortality rate of COPD has been increasing constantly. This is attributed to poor and inadequate measures of curbing the risks of the disease. It can also be attributed to the poor smoking habits given that most of the affected are smokers or have an history of smoking. However, given correct nursing interventions as regards prognosis and quality of care, the life of the patient can be prolonged for longer given that any infections are avoided. The persistence of this disease in the society in general dictates that immediate interventions in treatment and community awareness are needed especially as regards the issue of smoking. Interventions such as mobilizing smokers to stop the habit should be employed informing them of the dangers of smoking. Public smoking should also be prohibited in all means to prevent the effect of environmental smoke. More research should also be carried out to ascertain the main causes of the disease as well as the best interventions to ensure the survival of the disease and the reduction of its impacts. Bibliography World Health Organization (WHO). Chronic Respiratory Diseases: COPD Management. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/respiratory/copd/management/en/index.html HEDENSTIERNA, G., MANCEBO, J., BROCHARD, L., & PINSKY, M. R. (2009). Applied Physiology in Intensive Care Medicine. Berlin, Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. Read More