How to Prevent Pressure Sores in the Intensive Care Unit

How to Prevent Pressure Sores in the Intensive Care Unit

Caring for every patient in the Intensive Care Unit as a nurse should not only focus on medical management but also a holistic approach to ensuring the patient’s quality of life improves and complications arising from a hospital stay are minimal. One of the major complications among ICU patients is the development of pressure sores, which threaten their recovery and may result in infections that may lead to disability and death. There are ways to prevent pressure sores, including using a ripple mattress that reduces the contact pressure between the skin and the surface, constant hourly turning of the patient, and positioning patients in the ICU (Shi, C,2020).

According to King’s Conceptual System and the theory of goal attainment, human beings are the focus of nursing, and nurses are the primary players in the healthcare system who determine the objectives and methods for assisting individuals and families in achieving health promotion, maintenance and restoration (Whelton. B, 2019). Nurses must be able to observe and analyze behavior as well as intervene in the behavioral world to help individuals and groups cope with health, sickness, and crisis. There is a need to assess the patients in the ICU, communicate and identify their needs, plan for the interventions that will maximize their health and speed up their recovery, implement the plans made, and assess the outcomes through how the patient is responding to care.

Pressure sores are localized injuries to the skin and underlying tissues, mostly over bony prominence, which result from prolonged, unrelieved pressure due to impaired physical mobility. Critical thinking of nurses is needed here for the prevention of ulcers by considering the patient care and complications that may result. Clinical Quality Measures can be used to measure the outcomes of the patient according to interventions used to prevent pressure sores if they are effective and helpful to the patient. also, communicating with the patient is key in determining the effectiveness of using a ripple mattress in preventing pressure sores.

References

Whelton, B. (2019). The Humanistic Foundations of Imogene King’s Theory of Mutual Goal Attainment and Implications. http://hdl.handle.net/10755/19333

Shi, C., Dumville, J. C., Cullum, N., Rhodes, S., & McInnes, E. (2020). Beds and mattresses for treating pressure ulcers (Protocol). https://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2F14651858.CD013624

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How to Prevent Pressure Sores in the Intensive Care Unit

Week 5-Discussion Question-Personal Theory Improvement

Use the theory that you developed in week two. Improve it by using the information you have obtained in the intervening weeks. Use the Conceptual – Theoretical – Empirical Model (CTE) to link the operational definitions with the empirical indicators with the theoretical concepts and the conceptual model components.

Week 5-Discussion Question-Personal Theory Improvement 1