A director of nursing in a long-term care facility was concerned ...

[jwb375]

A director of nursing in a long-term care facility was concerned after reading that as many as 80 of residents have untreated pain. What action by the director is best?
 
  a. Establish protocols for routine assessment.
  b. Make a pain plan for every resident.
  c. Involve family members in treating pain.
  d. Educate the staff on how to assess pain.

Question 2

The nurse documents that a patient is likely experiencing exaggerated grief when observing which behavior?
 
  a. Keeps telling family and friends that her spouse can't be dead.
  b. Re-reads her late spouses diaries nightly since the death 2 years ago.
  c. Develops severe abdominal pains on each anniversary of her spouse's death.
  d. Becomes agitated whenever someone re-fers to the spouse's death or moving on.

[fromAlphatoOmega22]

Answer to Question 1

A
Nursing begins with assessment. The director should implement a protocol for routine assess-ments of pain in both cognitively impaired and intact residents. A pain plan cannot be created without this assessment data. Family members should be encouraged to provide input. The staff may or may not need to have education on assessment.

Answer to Question 2

B
Exaggerated grief reactions occur when normal feelings of anxiety, depression, or hopelessness grow to unmanageable proportions. People with exaggerated grief may feel an overwhelming sense of being unable to live without the deceased person. They may lose the sense that the acute grief is transient and may continue in this intense despair for a long time. Re-reading diaries each night is the most specific example of this type of grief.

[jwb375]

Thanks for the timely response, appreciate it

[Alyson.hiatt@yahoo.com]

TYSM