NUR330 Advanced Medical Surgical Nursing | Non Pharmacological Treatme

The paper needs to be about a 40 year old female patient who has had lower back pain for 5 years. She is receiving pain medication for the pain, so the 2 page paper is to be about further non-pharmacologic nursing interventions and support that can be provided.  

Answer:

Patients with back pain are seen to benefit from a confident as well as the knowledgeable nursing professionals who can dispel doubts as well as myths. The nursing professionals can provide appropriate back education as well as reassurance, develop a proper logical management plan and thereby refer to therapist if necessary. Therefore, this assignment will mainly focus on the non-pharmacological interventions that will help the patient to provide relief to the patient helping her to develop quality life.

The first consultation is one of the most important aspect for lower back pain management where the nursing professionals get the scope of developing therapeutic relationship with the patient. The nursing professional should develop a very positive attitude to the problems and should show the patient enough competence for the clinical evaluation of the presenting problem. This would create trust and confidence of the patient that will have positive impact on her mental and physical health (Hart et al., 2015). The second important aspect is the explanation and the reassurance. Often symptoms of back pain are seen to have disturbing connotations for many patients especially those who are seen to identify it with chronic pain. Therefore, the old patient needs and deserves appropriate reassurance as well as explanation about the nature of the program, its benign nature as well as good prognosis (Ambrose & Golightly, 2015). When the nursing professionals shows a confident, interested as well as knowledgeable approach, the patients feel secured and confident that again has positive impacts. Third intervention would be “back education” program that mainly includes the nursing professionals developing health literacy of the old patient. Biweekly instructions in the proper care as well as rehabilitation of the back in a face to face meeting, developing an individualized small patient booklet on back pain are extremely helpful. The nursing professionals should instruct the patient about the cause of the pain, optimal care for the activities of the daily lives, proper advices on lifting, driving, sitting as well as lying down, using of firm mattresses, possible aggravating factors, posture techniques and many others (Edmond et al., 2018). The fourth intervention is the development of an individualized exercise program development can be also considered as the effective management strategy for recovery as well as prevention of back pain. Effective programs like extension exercises, flexion and rotation exercises as well as isometric exercises are also ensured. The fifth intervention is the passive physical therapy that is also found to be beneficial for back pain as stated in the different evidence based studies. Over the years, the professionals have also developed different types of interventions. These are hydrotherapy, facet joint injection, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), and deep friction massage, biofeedback, acupuncture, immobilization in braces and many others (Chou et al., 2018). Modified home activities as well as relative rest are also the common interventions that patients with such back pain should always maintain under the instruction of the professionals.

From the above discussion, it becomes clear that the nurses can follow a wide range if interventions to help the old patient overcome the chronic back pain, however, they should also focus on the development of strong and therapeutic relationship with the patient as these is also seen to have positive outcomes on their mental health and emotional wellbeing

References:

Ambrose, K. R., & Golightly, Y. M. (2015). Physical exercise as non-pharmacological treatment of chronic pain: why and when. Best Practice & Research Clinical Rheumatology, 29(1), 120-130.

Chou, R., Côté, P., Randhawa, K., Torres, P., Yu, H., Nordin, M., ... & Cedraschi, C. (2018). The Global Spine Care Initiative: applying evidence-based guidelines on the non-invasive management of back and neck pain to low-and middle-income communities. European Spine Journal, 1-10.

Edmond, S. N., Becker, W. C., Driscoll, M. A., Decker, S. E., Higgins, D. M., Mattocks, K. M., ... & Haskell, S. G. (2018). Use of Non-Pharmacological Pain Treatment Modalities Among Veterans with Chronic Pain: Results from a Cross-Sectional Survey. Journal of general internal medicine, 33(1), 54-60.

Hart, O. R., Uden, R. M., McMullan, J. E., Ritchie, M. S., Williams, T. D., & Smith, B. H. (2015). A study of National Health Service management of chronic osteoarthritis and low back pain. Primary health care research & development, 16(2), 157-166.