Nursing Care in Terminal Situations

For example, people often contrast hospitals and nursing homes with hospices, assuming that the former exert a great deal of energy prolonging life against the patient's will, using the highest of medical technologies. Yet, these are interdependent entities. The hospital does use high technology to try to cure the patient, the nursing home may see the patient during the recovery process, and the hospice home or worker sees the patient when end-of-life situations develop. All use technological support, including hospice. In particular, hospice workers try to access the most advanced technologies in regard to pain management, which is one of the biggest problems during the dying process. They also use hospital beds, IVs, oxygen tanks, and other equipment that makes the dying person's process easier (Byock, 1997).

Hooks (1998) noted that one of the problems with achieving good pain management is that people are taught to deny death, and to fight it as long as possible. In particular, doctors and nurses are taught that they have failed when the patient dies, not that this

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(1999) described a situation in which a family continued to exhort their dying 9-year-old daughter to hold on and keep fighting. They also insisted that she be kept on full code status, meaning that all the technological resources of the hospital would be brought to bear to keep her alive if she began to die. After a long conversation with the mother, however, the situation changed, and the daughter died soon afterward, having been placed on "no code" status and dying in her parent's arms. This, to the nursing staff, and to her family, was the more desirable option than using technology to prolong her pain. Perhaps the most profound use of technology, and sometimes the most problematic, is that involved in intensive care nursing. Nurses are involved with some of the highest technology equipment available, including advanced monitoring systems, but may not have the opportunity to engage with the patients in other ways. They may also support the technology against the wishes of family members. For example, many critical care nurses prefer closed ICUs, feeling that visitation interferes with patient care. It seems that they have forgotten the human care aspect and are relying solely on technology to be curative. In their re
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Joy Ufema, Review Literature, Development Situation, ICU Analysis, , Care Network, Monitoring ICU, Nursing Management, health care, Feeg VD, Hooks FJ, health care professionals, care professionals, pain management, nursing care, nursing staff, care children, byock 1997, end-of-life issues, dying process, patients afar 1999, patients afar, monitoring icu patients, particularly pain management, nursing staff family,
Approximate Word count = 1322
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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