Pain Management In Nursing

Everyone experiences pain at some point. From the patient in the most direct circumstances in urgent care to the little kid with a sprained ankle. Pain is universal. Yet, it continues to plague individuals all over the world. Pain Management and the post-surgery healing processes are a difficult area to study based on the personal nature of how each individual patient deals with and visualizes their own pain and recovery. Still, nursing researchers and practitioners are constantly looking for methods to improve or augment current pain management practices within contemporary nursing practice. In more contemporary pain management strategies, there is often a tendency to over rely on pharmaceutical medications. Pain is experienced by patients

Further research on alternative methods for pain reduction and management techniques may be able to give some much-needed relief to a mass of individuals, not just a handful of patients (Bresler, 2012). Pain can not only harm individuals with the injury, it can cause harm to everyone around them (Bresler, 2012). No one wants to see their loved ones suffer. Also, patients themselves may damage their own personal relationships because of the extremity of pain and how it can isolate an individual (Bresler,

The concept of PICO revolves around the elements of patient/population, intervention/issue, comparison, and outcome (Davies, 2011). First, the patient and problems regard pain management in individuals having to experience traumatic injuries and surgeries. As they have to endure serious pain during their recovery, there are issues as to how to best manage pain in individuals who are trying to recover with serious trauma to their bodies. The main intervention here is guided imagery, which is “the practice of concentrating on a mental picture to promote healing and relaxation or other positive outcomes” (Cornelius, 2010). It is the alternative method of coaching, where medical staff ask patients to picture particular health outcomes, like the movement of blood out of an area that is about to undergo surgery (Bresler, 2012). Studies have explored how it can be a helpful preparation tool for individuals undergoing invasive surgeries. Essentially, “guided imagery could be used to raise pain tolerance, facilitate restful sleep, elevate mood, increase motivation, reduce dependence, and promote self-management” (Bresler, 2012). Still, the concept of guided imagery tends to stray far from traditional methods of pain management. Pharmaceuticals have long been a major method of treatment for pain but have resulted in major backlashes in regard to patients