Exploring family relationships through associations of comfort, relatedness states, and life closure in hospice patients: A pilot study.

Objective: Research at the end of life tends to focus on the dying patient's symptoms, often overlooking issues associated with family interactions. However, many families struggle just to maintain or initiate these valuable connections. The purpose of our pilot study was to explore family relationships at the end of life and investigate associations among perceived comfort, relatedness states, and life closure.

Your client has multiple sclerosis: understanding the challenge.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease that causes muscle weakness or spasticity, balance incoordination, sensory deficit, and fatigue. Any of these effects of MS can increase the risk for orthopaedic injury that places individuals with MS in an orthopaedic care setting. Nurses with an understanding of MS and the effect of MS on the body will be better prepared to educate peers about MS, act as advocates for individuals with MS in the orthopaedic setting, and offer optimum care that addresses the patient's MS as well as the orthopaedic problem.

Speaking of workplace bullying.

Despite the increasing frequency of its reported incidence, especially in health care practice and education settings, workplace bullying seems to defy victims' clear understanding of its effects on them personally and to challenge their ability to provide cogent explanations about those effects to others. Especially, when it is subtle, as is the case in much of workplace bullying, the experience is emotionally confusing to its victims, and its inherent behaviors often seem absurd to those who have not lived through them firsthand. Moreover, the outwardly innocuous behaviors of subtle workplace bullying can yield long-term disorder for victims' coworkers and for employing organizations.

Glaucoma and glaucoma medications.

Glaucoma is an insidious "thief of vision" that affects millions of Americans and is a leading cause of blindness worldwide. The signs of the most common form of glaucoma are incremental and are often not noticed until the vision loss is acute. Nurses, in any practice arena, who are aware and knowledgeable about glaucoma can play a vital role in identifying those at risk for glaucoma before irreversible damage is done.

Moving beyond the pain: women's responses to the perinatal period after childhood sexual abuse.

Introduction: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA), a significant public health problem, affects 1 in 9 women presenting for prenatal care. Female survivors of CSA often experience posttraumatic stress disorder. Flashbacks of the trauma can interfere with a survivor's ability to get appropriate perinatal care.

One statin, two statins, three statins, more: similarities and differences of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors.

Statin drugs (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors) are one of the most widely prescribed drugs today. They are considered first-line therapy to lower blood serum cholesterol levels in conjunction with therapeutic lifestyle changes for both primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular events. In the following discussion, a brief explanation of the background of statins will explain why they are deemed so important today.

Paradise Lost: how older adult Taiwanese immigrants make decisions about their living arrangements.

Understanding the process of making living arrangement decisions among older adult immigrants is essential to developing and optimizing health promotion strategies. The purpose of this study was to discover how older adult Taiwanese immigrants made decisions about their living arrangements. Fourteen Taiwanese older adult immigrants were recruited from a large Northeastern metropolitan city in the United States.

What's new? Medication changes 2008-2010.

Every year there are new medications approved by the Federal Food & Drug Administration. Some medications are removed from the market, and new information or warnings about existing medications become available. Some of the information about these changes makes its way into public media and can cause concern among patients and some can be misleading for those without a full understanding of the facts.

Acetaminophen: old friend--new rules.

Acetaminophen is an old and comfortable friend. In its over-the-counter forms (of which there are almost 100), it is used by millions of people for relief of pain and to treat mild fevers. When combined with an opioid as a prescription drug, it is often effective for more severe pain.

Life-course typology of adults who experienced sexual violence.

Two qualitative methodologies were used to develop a life-course typology of individuals who had been exposed to sexual violence. Interview narratives of 121 adult women and men who participated in qualitative study of women's and men's responses to sexual violence provided the data. The authors combined a narrative approach (holistic-content and holistic-form analysis) to describe the life courses of the participants and a qualitative person-oriented approach (cross-case analysis) to identify meaningful subgroups within the total sample.

Feasibility trial of guided imagery and control interventions in mock subjects.

This article reports a Phase I feasibility trial of a guided imagery intervention in 20 healthy volunteers. Structural equivalence of a placebo control intervention of listening to audio book segments was evaluated. Content analysis of participant journals and exit interviews suggest suitability and acceptability of both the guided imagery and control interventions.

Improving patient safety by improving medication communication.

Any time that information about a patient's medication is communicated, there is a potential for error that occurs because of misinterpretation of abbreviations, acronyms, and dose designations. In the following discussion, corrective approaches for reducing the use of error-prone terms will be reviewed. Terms on the "Do Not Use" list are identified and the rationale for using "Tall Man" letters is addressed.

Treating clients with a deadly poison.

Botulinum toxin (Botox) injections are a highly sought-after elective treatment for temporary relief of some facial lines. Botox is also a highly useful therapeutic agent, approved for use in treating a variety of health conditions. However, Botulinum toxin is a poison responsible for botulism, and, regardless of the purpose for Botox injections, there are serious considerations about safety and adverse effects related to its use that are important for nurses to know.

Factors influencing nurses' participation in clinical research.

Clinical research is necessary for developing nursing's body of knowledge and improving the quality of gastroenterology nursing care. The support and participation of nursing staff are crucial to conducting interventional research. Identification of characteristics of nurses and their work settings that facilitate or impede participation in research is needed.

Drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction.

Knowledge of the drugs currently approved to treat erectile dysfunction (ED) is important for nurses who care for male patients, especially those men of middle age or older and those who have concurrent health problems or are taking medications that may contribute to ED. This article provides a very basic look at ED and the drugs currently approved and used for treatment. Informed nurses can increase patient understanding of ED, make suggestions for necessary referrals, and help patients and their sexual partners understand the appropriate use and cautions associated with drugs used to treat ED.

Low-income HIV-infected women and the process of engaging in healthy behavior.

This cross-sectional multimethod study sought to examine the process of engaging in healthy behaviors, particularly related to stress management, in HIV-infected women with low incomes. Recruited from northeast Ohio, 42 women completed standardized research measures to assess healthy behaviors (via the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II) and the processes of change espoused by the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change; 8 of those women participated in individual semistructured interviews conducted at a later point in time to gain additional insight into the phenomenon. Participants were 25 to 60 years of age (mean 38.

Sexually compulsive/addictive behaviors in women: a women's healthcare issue.

Sexually compulsive/addictive behavior is a pattern of sexual behaviors that cause distress and/or impairment of social functioning. It is marked by obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviors, and the individual's inability to stop the behaviors despite negative consequences. Women experiencing sexually compulsive/addictive behavior are preoccupied with sex not as a response to desire but rather as a behavior that serves the purpose of anxiety reduction.

Medicating young or very young patients--part I.

Children enter an orthopaedic treatment environment for a variety of reasons. Some of these pediatric patients will be seen in practices specializing in pediatric orthopedics. However, many young patients with less demanding problems will be seen in family practice settings and general orthopaedic areas.

Cognitive-behavioral interventions for IV insertion pain.

INSERTION OF AN IV CATHETER is a commonly performed and painful procedure. The use of cognitive-behavioral interventions (CBIs) may decrease pain by diverting the patient's attention to stimuli other than pain. THIS RANDOMIZED, CONTROLLED TRIAL examined the effect of three CBIs--music, kaleidoscope, and guided imagery--on IV insertion pain in 324 patients.

Managing insomnia.

Sleep is a vital part of normal health and wellness for everyone. It is also an important factor in recovering from the physiological and emotional stress of any hospitalization or illness. Insomnia--the lack of adequate period of sleep--has a profound impact on society and public health in many ways.

Diabetes and diabetes medications.

There are more than 20 million people in the United States who have diabetes; 14 million are diagnosed and an estimated 6 million who are unaware that they have diabetes. Thus, nurses in every setting are interacting with patients who have diabetes. Those nurses who are knowledgeable about diabetes can play a major role in reducing the damage that diabetes causes by educating patients and helping them identify the important aspects of managing their disease.

Unraveling the mystery of HIV medications.

Today, millions of people around the globe are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This retrovirus attacks and renders ineffective the human immune system and leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), which leaves those with AIDS open to a variety of fatal infections. HIV knows no racial, gender, or age distinctions, and there is, as yet, no cure for HIV.

Fighting infection: an ongoing challenge, part 3-antimycobacterials, antifungals, and antivirals.

The first part of this series provided a brief overview of how antimicrobials, the "silver bullets" of modern medicine, are designed to target specific agents of infection. The second part addressed several classes of antibacterials: bacterial cell wall inhibitors (penicillins, cephalosporins), protein synthesis inhibitors (macrolides, tetracyclines, aminoglycosides), and nucleic acid inhibitors (sulfonamides and quinolones). This third section focus on those drugs used to treat mycobacterial infections (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), fungal infections (Candida species, Aspergillus species), and viral infections (herpes, hepatitis, and influenza).