Category: Nurse Skills
Articles involving nursing skills and techniques.
Understanding Terminal Restlessness
Navigating the final days of a loved one's life can be a challenging and emotional journey. One of the signs that can be observed during this time is known as terminal restlessness. As someone deeply rooted in hospice care, I have witnessed various manifestations of this restlessness. Understanding its types, causes, and management strategies is crucial for providing compassionate end-of-life care. This article aims to illuminate the different kinds of terminal restlessness, identify reversible causes, and discuss effective management techniques. By equipping caregivers, families, and healthcare professionals with this knowledge, we can ensure that terminally ill individuals experience comfort and dignity in their final days.
Time Management Tips for New Visiting Nurses
One of the main challenges of new nurses is time management. In a hospital or nursing home setting, you often have coworkers to rescue you in a pinch in case you are overwhelmed; on top of having nearby coworkers, most orientation programs, as well as nursing schools, focus on time management skills in a facility setting. Yet what about time management as a visiting nurse — in home health or home hospice or both?
Let me share with you my wisdom and experience in time management in the field of a visiting nurses to hopefully help you have more time for life compared to work — a better work-life balance.
Tips for new hospice nurses doing an admission
If you are a new nurse to hospice, one of the tasks you probably dread is doing an admission especially if you have scheduled visits the same day as the admission.
I would like to share with you some tips that when applied may help lower your stress level, and help you remain on time even in cases where you have three to four visits including recertification to do the same day.
Early detection of COVID-19 in the elderly
These are my experiences as a registered nurse caring for geriatric patients in a long-term & rehab care setting where I was the house supervisor responsible for up to 151 residents along with managing the second shift healthcare staff.
By now, you’ve probably had your temperature checked ad nauseam as you visit different locations. Yet, is checking the temperature of your elderly loved ones a good way to know if they may have COVID-19? Are you aware that according to Vital Signs in Older Patients: Age-Related Changes, “older patients are less able to mount a fever response.” Most of my geriatric patients did not have a fever when they contracted COVID-19, and most remained afebrile (without fever) through their stay in the COVID unit.
What’s a more reliable sign of potential COVID-19 infection in the elderly?
INFJ and being a hospice nurse
As an INFJ, I’m almost constantly introspective. Today, I was helping with an emergency where one of our wonderful on-call nurses was in a car accident. During my visit with a patient I admitted yesterday who is transitioning towards actively dying, I was in bewilderment in my mind about how comfortable and peacefully patient I am when I’m around the terminally ill and their family.