Nursing Interventions
Patient suffering from Parkinson’s disease MUST receive their medication on schedule. This is the most important nursing intervention for a nurse to remember. When the medication for Parkinson’s disease is not administered as scheduled the chemical in the body become imbalances and signs and symptom of the disease process become uncontrolled, resulting in a decrease in the patient’s ability to perform activities of daily living for themselves and an increase in the amount of assistance that the nurse will have to provide. This is also very important because correcting chemical imbalances in the body is a process that occurs over a period of time, and achieving a therapeutic level of medication for the patients’ functions
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The nursing outcome should be aimed at preventing choking and aspiration and the safe passage of food and liquid from the mouth to the stomach. In order to provide the best care the nurse should collaborate with a language and speech therapist who will evaluate the patient and possibly recommend lip, tongue and throat exercises to improve swallowing. The nurse should also consult with a dietician who may recommend foods that are easy to swallow the used of diet appropriate thickeners to prevent the occurrence of choking. Hydration should be monitored closely by documenting intake, output, skin turgor and mucous membranes. During meal time the nurse should be sure that the patients has received their medication as scheduled, so that the patient can swallow. The patients should be positioned in a full fowler’s position or as far upright as can be tolerated and suction equipment should be beside. During the actual event of food consumption an assistive personnel should be present and food should be cut into small bite size pieces, the use of a straw should never be permitted. The patient should be instructed to place food toward the back of the mouth and the nurse should monitor for tongue movement during mastication. If any food happens to fall on the chin or lip the patient should be encouraged to use the …show more content…
This can be very challenging to deal with for both the nurse and family members (Copstead & Banasik, 2010). These behavioral changes should be addressed by providing a significant amount of relaxing and therapeutic activities to help cope with anxiety and tension. The nurse should make the patients environments as quiet and relaxing as possible while constantly orienting the patience back to reality with continued references to the present time, date, season and personal memorabilia. Personal photo should be label in order to refresh the patient’s memory. When interacting with the patient the nurse should always introduce themselves and make eye contact. Instructions should be simple and direct. If the patient doesn’t comply the nurse should try alternative method to get the patient to comply such as distraction. A patient with dementia should never be confronted due to the tendency for them to become combative (Sommer et al.,