Trauma Intensive Care Unit
Critical Care Nursing: Trauma Intensive Care Unit
Trauma is identified as a disease progression that takes place subsequent to the submission of vigor or energy of a person affected by it. It is also recognized as a type of injury caused by a physical wound or damage originated from an external compelling force that more than a body can seize or indulge. Furthermore, victims of traumatic experiences or accidents need a high multifaceted medical assistance that is why these patients are admitted to the Trauma Intensive Care Unit for the purpose of monitoring their health condition so that they can surmount and overcome the trauma and injuries they endure.
Emergency hospital patients may be admitted from emergency or operating rooms to the trauma intensive care unit assisted by attending physicians specializing in accident related and life threatening injuries. Depending on the accident that the patients came across, series of X-ray examinations, laboratory testing and other medical procedures may be required and needed for them to be diagnosed correctly. Patients may also undergo physical or occupational therapy sessions during their stay in the ICU. Moreover, the patient will continue to stay in the intensive care unit in anticipation of his or her need of a thorough therapeutic and nursing attention.
Meanwhile, patients requiring intensive care unit trauma treatment may undergo emotional agony with escalating enlargement of mental disorders and associated disturbance. The psychological interferences happening in the intensive care unit encompass an extensive variety of actions executed and carried out unswervingly by clinical psychologists and a trained ICU nursing care staff, with an intention of providing and extending emotional support to ICU patients as well as generating different coping approaches to patients with poor health or those who are still disturbed by major traumatic experiences.
Furthermore, it is imperative on the part of health care professionals, medical specialists, and nurses to know that their patients in the intensive care unit may behave extraordinarily different because of their experience in traumatic injuries like swelling or bruises and on how their body and mind can dwell on the pain and trauma they undertake. Meanwhile because of different pain medications, head injuries and other illnesses or infectivity, and sleeping disorders, trauma ICU patients may emerge drowsy, sluggish, agitated, or perplexed by the anguishing pain and trauma they are going through.
Nurses working in the Intensive Care Unit generally work with perilously ill patients who are conceivably recuperating and getting their strength back from medical conditions or traumatic injuries or accidents they are embark on. Patients admitted in the ICU are those who are in the situation of being unstable and they call for nursing care services. They are responsible in closely monitoring the patients in the ICU, and continue their assistance to these patients whenever necessary especially on times when patients become uneasy and feel discomfort in their beds. They should also be in the know about the high technology equipment that is used to monitor patient’s body functions and give them treatment if necessary. In clinical practice, the nurses provide care to patients suffering from traumatic injuries.
As the health care industry is continuously improving in terms of innovation and advancement in medication, medical equipment and technology, it is also significant and obligatory to concentrate on the patients’ recovery and therapeutic remedy. Patients who are admitted in the trauma intensive care unit should always be given an ample amount of critical nursing care and medical care services by doctors and nurse practitioners assigned to them that the patients need in order to cope up with trauma and distress due to injuries and illnesses that they acquire from unexpected accident.
Critical care nursing is indeed a significant role in nursing profession today. Critical care nurses often work in hospitals’ intensive care units. Critical care nurses assist the critically and terribly ill patients who suffer from life threatening experiences that caused them to have trauma and emotional dilemma. Since the profession of critical care nursing often drawn in some life and death circumstances, they ought to carefully discern and be aware of the complexities of their job. Also, they should have an expertise over medical equipment usage in the intensive care unit so that they may be able to continuously monitor their patients and provide their medical needs whenever necessary.
In addition, critical care nurses should be accountable in making certain that all of their critically ill patients are getting the most favorable and advantageous care that they need in order to recover from their injuries and medical complaints. They supposed to utilize their specific skills in critical nursing care on top of their profound familiarity about the human body and the recent technology or instruments needed for patients’ treatment, high intensity therapies as well as full nursing vigilance and monitoring.
According to an article about Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, family members of patients admitted in the ICU should also be given support for it may help in plummeting their emotional distress, allowing them to recover, muddle through constant worry and give support to the patient (Bailey, et.al., 2010). Critical care nurses should have skills, experience and intensive training and knowledge to endow care to patients and their families and construct an environment that are therapeutic, compassionate, and caring. Primarily, the critical care nurses in the intensive care unit have to be a patient supporter or advocate. They are filling up a variety of roles in the hospitals. They must know how to support the patients so that they can reduce the chances of unsuccessful treatment to patients in the intensive care units.
More often than not, intensive care unit patients also suffer from mental destruction, confusion or disorientation. These patients tend to have a higher possibility of death or induce a longer stay in the intensive care unit and they are more probable to experience mental mutilation after hospital care. This is more frequent amongst adults and those patients who have history of mental illness. Conceivably, intensive care unit patients should be given more attention so that they can be treated as soon as possible and they may gain proper medication and medical assistance from critical care nurse practitioners and health care professionals.
References
Mason, V. et.al. (2014). Compassion fatigue, moral distress, and work engagement in surgical
intensive care unit trauma nurses: a pilot study. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing,
33(4), 215-225.
Bailey, J. Sabbagh, M. Loiselle, C. Boileau, J. McVey, L. (April 2010). Supporting families in
the ICU. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 26(2), 114-122.
