Leukemia Pain

Need/Nursing Diagnosis/Cues Acute pain related to disease process OBJECTIVE: ♦ Facial grimacing ♦ Irritability ♦ Guarding of the affected areas.

Scientific Analysis Physical pain is the unpleasant feeling common to a headache and a stubbed toe. It typically consists of negative affect and aversion, and has location, duration, intensity and a distinctive quality. Pain is often accompanied by other bodily feelings (e.g., nausea, fatigue), negative emotions (e.g., fear, anxiety, anger, irritability, grief, depression), and cognitive impairment (e.g., attention and working memory deficits).Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he says it does.Pain is part of the body's defense system, triggering a reflex reaction to retract from a painful stimulus, and helps adjust behavior to increase avoidance of that particular harmful situation in the future.

Objective After 8 hours of nursing interventions, the patient will: -demonstrate use of relaxation skills, other methods to promote comfort and to relieve pain.

Nursing Intervention

Rationale

Independent: ♦ Assess reports of pain, including location and intensity (scale of 0-10).

♦ To provide base line information.

♦ Observe nonverbal cues.

♦ Pain is unique to each patient. One may encounter varying descriptions because of individualized perceptions. Non verbal cues may aid in evaluation of pain and effectiveness of therapy.

♦ Explore alternative pain relief measure like relaxation technique, breathing techniques and guided imagery. ♦ Carefully position affected part.

♦ Cognitive behavioral interventions may reduce reliance on pharmacological therapy and enhance patient’s sense of control.

♦ Apply local massage gently to affected areas.

♦ Reduces discomfort, and risk for injury.

♦ Encourage range of motion exercises.

♦ Help reduce muscle tension.

♦ Maintain adequate fluid intake. Collaborative:

♦ Prevents joint stiffness and Possible contracture formation.

♦ Administer medication as indicated like analgesics and antibiotics.

♦ Dehydration increases sickling And corresponding pain. ♦ Analgesics reduces pain

Evaluation ♦ After 8 hours of nursing interventions, the patient was able to: -demonstrate use of relaxation skills, other methods to promote comfort and to relieve pain.