Care Plan on Sciatic Nerve Injury - Essay Example

• Sciatic nerve originated from the lumbar-sacral region and supplies muscles of the lower leg and those at the back of the knee.

It also provides sensation at the site of the lower foot, back of the thigh, and part of the lower leg (Neal & Fields, 2010).

• L5-S1 is one of the points of origin of the sciatic nerve. Thus, compression at this point means that the sciatic nerve will be injured hence releasing the symptoms down the lower limb where it supplies
• Damage to the nerve partially will exhibit weakness of knee flexion when bending, inability to bend the foot inwards (inversion), weakness when moving feet, or when bending the foot down plantarflex.
• The person’s normal reflex interferes with weak or absent ankle-jerk reflex.
• Symptoms are characterized by cramps, numbness or prickling, tingling sensation, heaviness, fatigue, and sometimes bladder symptoms as well. The symptoms may be bilateral and symmetrical; however, sometimes they may be unilateral with leg pain being more troubling than that of the back in most instances

To mitigate this pain and improve the quality of life, the patient has to be taken through preventive measures to take in order to avoid unnecessary pain. First, it will involve the care of patients at the back. Simple techniques of avoiding pain and how to handle his back are essential in mitigating the effect(Neal & Fields, 2010)

• At the same time, the patient needs more knowledge on the importance of taking education as per the physician’s direction. From history, the patient takes more of over counter drugs with minimal medical care
• Lastly, the patient needs counseling on his psychosocial status. He pities himself for the fact he is not progressing with family for his inability to provide for the separated wife. Poor psychological orientation has a great impact on the patient's healing process hence has to be dealt with optimally to enhance the healing process.

Key points about patients presenting diagnoses, how the learner arrived at each diagnosis, and the rationale behind suggesting the diagnostic tests.

• One of the diagnoses is Pain on the lower extremities and the back related to spinal cord injury. To determine this, there was an exhaustive examination of the history obtained from the client and the presenting complaint. At the same, one can observe the facial expression upon palpation of the site when the pain recurs following the patient's activity.
• Psychosocially, the patient presented with impaired coping with life. This comes in since he believes he is a major cause for his divorce with the estranged wife for he was not able to provide for the family. At the same time, he has impaired self-esteem emanating from the fact he does not like the kind of work he does which barely meets his basic need and those of the family.

To make a medical diagnosis, tests had to be coupled with the physical examination to ascertain the status of the patient, which includes an MRI and X-ray to suffice the findings,

listed learners' understanding of patient education for musculoskeletal care gathered from research.

• Musculoskeletal patients sometimes may take time before realizing they are ailing. Therefore, there is a need to educate people to seek medical care timely to avoid further damage to the system.
• For instance, in the case study, the patient too long to seek medical advice that can further lead to compromise the spinal cords pressure on the sciatic nerve.