Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Quality of Life for the Patient and Family Essay Example for Free

Quality of Life for the Patient and Family Essay Quality of life has a different meaning for everyone. Many personal thoughts and feelings can come into play when caring for others during the end stages of life. However as a nurse and caregiver, these opinions must be put aside at this significant time. For some health care providers, we may feel that keeping the patient comfortable and having them surrounded by family is most important. However, for the patient, personal culture, lifestyle and value for one self as well as a sense of independence in handling this time alone is most imperative. Therefor a nurse must consider the individuals past experiences, present lifestyle and personal hopes in which they choose to live in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns at this stage. One must meet not only the physical needs of the patient but the psychosocial demands in this sensitive time of need. Seeking aggressive medical treatment vs. palliative care is something that is very personal and differs from individual to individual. Nurses’ opinions and suggestions of the â€Å"best care† should not be voiced to the patient or family, even if asked directly. For Mrs. Thomas, time also plays an important role. She is young and may have many other worries than those of an older age experience in preparing for end of life. A nurse must consider what areas of life are important to her and what is the relative importance of each of these areas. Personal perception that counting on family support is huge, but may not be possible in Mrs. Thomas’ situation as her children live out of town. STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF LIFE The nurse should look at several strategies that directly impact the patient as well as the family. Quality of life not only looks at the health status the patient but those directly involved in the care of the patient. This encompasses a broader set of planning including finances, housing, and employment. This will have a direct impact on the entire family. Three important strategies that are helpful to relieve overall stress and promote optimal coping skills include: 1) patient awareness of disease process, 2) available support from healthcare providers and 3) addressing physical as well as the psychosocial needs of the patient. Healthcare professionals must be prepared and speak directly with the patient and family when it is determined best to the physician’s ability, that the identified disease of breast cancer will cause death. Advance planning and preparation may be helpful in dying well if Mrs. Thomas is more aware about her status of disease. Physicians and nurses must change the plan of aggressive medical treatments of curing the disease of breast cancer and concentrate providing support and a comfortable well being of the deteriorating disease process. This in turn should provide a plan of care for relief of pain, contentment to the patient and focus on the overall whole being of quality of life. The homecare team can include doctors, nurses, home health aides, social workers, and clergy as well as trained volunteers. Most team members provide on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to deliver support. The patient and family should feel the comfort in calling these resources at anytime. The nurse must remind Mrs. Thomas and her husband that they are not â€Å"bothering† any team member by asking for assistance. The team must always work together and communicate the patient’s goals for end-of-life care. It is important for all to realize this is very individualized for each patient and family member. Each individual strategy should include caring for the whole person physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually. It important for the team to develop strengths based perspectives of psychosocial interventions and listen to what the patient and family have to say to enable them to cope better. In doing so, the team must also communicate on each encounter with Mrs. Thomas and family as well as each other to assure that her and the husband’s needs are being met. HOLISTIC CARE A holistic nursing care plan in valuable in delivering care to the entire person in supporting the physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social and environmental needs. With this approach, nursing care needs to move away from viewing Mrs. Thomas as merely a diagnosis and treating her as a whole person. Nursing goals should be to develop immediate trust with the patient and family, provide comfort, supportive care, and symptom management. This can be achieved by effective communication and providing a calm, relaxed setting for Mrs. Thomas. Allowing her to speak openly and honestly about her feelings and emotions of grief, physical complaints such as pain, nausea, and difficulty sleeping is a good way to start to develop a trusting nurse/patient relationship. As a nurse, one must be supportive and be willing to listen openly. Once Mrs. Thomas begins to express these types of things, the nurse must review and evaluate every visit to improve specific concerns with her. More importantly, healthcare providers must display an openness to hear new concerns and prioritize the needs of the patient and family. FUNCTIONAL ABILITY Assessments to maintain the self functional ability for Mrs. Thomas should include creating a plan to achieve realistic goals and allow self care as long as possible. This in turn can give control back to Mrs. Thomas, help raise confidence and value her quality of life. Mrs. Thomas’ physical, social and environmental conditions should also be considered to help her care for herself. Discussing the 24/7 availability of visits from registered nurses and social workers, involving family and friends or volunteers that can help with running errands and meal preparation for adequate dietary intake, and discussing appropriate medical equipment to assist with ADLs such as performing personal hygiene can prove to be helpful. PROVIDING ADDITIONAL CARE When self-care is no longer possible, the importance of more frequent nurse and/or social worker visits, and interaction of clergy is valuable. In addition, further involvement of additional family, friends, home health aides or volunteers to assist not only with running errands, meal preparation and assistance with ADLs but being present in the home for longer periods to care directly for Mrs. Thomas becomes more imperative. The nurse can assist in making sure appropriate DME equipment is in the home. In addition, this turns out to be a time when additional emotional support is of great concern for Mr. Thomas. CHRONIC DEPRESSION Mr. Thomas already suffers from chronic depression and now has to endure immense and continuous stress to care for his wife with advanced breast cancer. Over time this takes a toll his health, ability to work, finances, and their own personal and family needs. Involvement of not only the nurse, but also social worker and bereavement counselor can help Mr. Thomas tremendously. Encouraging him to take his medications will help both him and his wife. Also, reassurance that it is okay to want quiet time and allowing others to help to care for his wife should be verbalized to him in a caring manner. Taking some of the financial worries away from Mr. Thomas may help as well. The social worker can discuss resources that are of no cost from community volunteer organizations and review the reimbursement of covered services from the insurance organization at the beginning and in ongoing care of his wife. Sharing the right information with the patient’s family is very important and can assist in better coping. Again, the home care team must offer an environment that provides the openness to hear all concerns and overall needs of not only the patient but also her family.

Monday, January 20, 2020

American Censorship of Japanese Animation Essay -- Television Media TV

American Censorship of Japanese Animation Abrstract: This essay will explore why Americans feel the need to censor Japanese Animation, how the Japanese culture differs from American culture, and how to solve the growing debate of the censorship of Japanese media.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Japan, that strange and exotic land in the east, has a complex and interesting history that has shaped and molded its culture into a very unique society today.   Of course their customs have influenced their entertainment, especially television and movies.   In a day and age where information is free to all through the internet and reliable postal systems these television shows, movies, toys, and comics have made their way all over the world.   The reception of Japanese media has had mixed reactions, both good and bad.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   America, being an amalgamation of societies and cultures, has naturally had a mixed reaction to Japanese media.   The younger generation, namely those in their twenties or younger, have embraced the bright and flashy style of Japanese animation.   The most popular shows are the ones with the most action, but shows that concentrate on character development and storyline are also popular, especially among the female population.   The older generation does not have such open minds unfortunately.   They do not seem to understand the appeal of the big eyed characters yelling nonsense at each other or the fact that all animation is not just silly kid’s stuff.   Not only that, but Japanese animation has been tagged as overly violent and obscene.   It has been accused of causing violence and disturbing young children by fundamentalist organizations.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   American television networks and video distributors also feel the need to c... ...they were truly meant to be, and parents do not have to worry about inappropriate content for their children.   With a little bit of effort the rising sun can be purified and enjoyed by all.   Works Cited Barker, Olivia.   â€Å"The Asianization of America.†Ã‚   USA Today.   March 2001: 1A-2A.     Ã‚   Infotrac.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Bryant, Anthony J. and Arsenault, Mark.   Sengoku.   Gold Rush Games 1997-1999. Clements, Jonathon and McCarthy, Helen.   The Anime Encyclopedia.   Stone Bridge    Press 2001. Lazar, Jim.   â€Å"Anime Expo Report 2000.† www.animeprime.com Retrieved December 13, 2004. Lazar, Jim.   â€Å"Sailor Moon Editing Report.† www.animeprime.com Retrieved December    18, 2004. MacKinnon, Mark C. The Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game and Resource Book.     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Guardians of   Order 1998. Mallory, Michael.   â€Å"Kid’s Anime Hits Critical Mass.† Los Angeles Times.   Oct. 2004: 18.  Ã‚   Infotrac.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

My Advices to Upcoming High School Students Essay

If I was able to go back to my high school year, some advice that I would give to upcoming students is: join many academic activities, join lots of club to stay connect to the school, do your homework assignments and turn in the assignments on time. I am sure that if you follow at least two or three of these suggestions, you will love going to school and also have a motive to go to school every day and do your homework. When you do your assignments on time, you will receive good grades and good honors, too. Firstly, when you are able to join at least one or two academic activities after school, you have so much fun and you get to meet more and more people. The activities also help you lose weight and the best benefit is competing with others. For instance, when my sister was in the swimming team her freshman, sophomore and junior year, she was barely home. She was always busy with her swimming team and having fun swimming against other schools. After every swimming competition, she will always come home with a smile on her face and we always thought her school had won, but really they didn’t win. She told me she didn’t care about winning; the most she cared about was being able to have fun, enjoy herself, and know what her capability is. For that, I would recommend students to take after school activities and be able to learn what their body is capable of doing instead of being shy like me and not do anything except coming home and just do my everyday routine. Secondly, joining after school clubs are awesome too. You are able to connect with students and also many teachers. This is a really great opportunity to do when student’s first entering a new school because you get to know other students faster and also different teacher’s in your school. They can also write you recommendations for college too. The better the teacher knows about you, the more they can write and elaborate to the colleges about you in the recommendations. Some students join clubs to help out after school activities like sports, parent conferences, school dances, and many more. This way you are able to be known in school for being a very great and helpful student and make many friends since everybody will know you by all the support you have given. Lastly, doing your homework is the number one priority in school and in college because without doing your homework, you are not able to do after school activities and play any sports. You have to be able to do the homework and turn the homework in on time to receive full credit for a good grade. Putting all your effort into the homework may seem like it is not worth it, but afterwards, you see how far you have gone and what things you have learned thanks to all the homework and all the teachers pushing deadlines and being so strict about homework. Always do your homework no matter how hard it is because the homework is doable; you just have to put all your time and effort into it to get it done the way the teacher wants it. Heeding these tips, you are able to gain many assets and help that you will be very proud of yourself and it will always help you down the future of life. You will always need recommendations for colleges and jobs and you will be able to get that easily because of all the after school activities. You will be able to go to attend more education and do all your assignments and turn them on time because you have already been down that route already. You will also learn how to stay fit because you were able to stay fit during high school with all the academic activities and learning how to motivate yourself without anyone motivating you.