2 y/o female s/p heart transplant 2019, chronic RF, pulmonary vein stenosis, speech & developmental delay; tracheostomy, Trilogy ventilator, G-tube feedings 1. Reflect on what you thought in-home care nurses did what is the benefit 2. Discuss in depth the primary disease conditions present in the child. Name the

2 y/o female s/p heart transplant 2019, chronic RF, pulmonary vein stenosis, speech & developmental delay; tracheostomy, Trilogy ventilator, G-tube feedings 1. Reflect on what you thought in-home care nurses did what is the benefit 2. Discuss in depth the primary disease conditions present in the child. Name the

Case Scenario

In-home care is an essential care program that ensures regular monitoring of the patients’ health and prevents health adversities. The nurses in the home-care program provide essential services such as diaper changing, feeding, medication administration, and performing essential health monitoring indicators such as blood pressure, respiratory rate, heart rate, and lung sounds. The activities done by the nurses for the child were of great benefit to the child in controlling the chronicity of the disease, ensuring health improvement through feeding, and providing company for psychological wellness.

The patient’s primary disease is asthma. The child is regularly coughing with difficulties in breathing due to constricted airway. The child produces wheezing sounds while breathing, especially during the night and cold weather. Asthma is a pulmonary disease that affects the breathing system and is caused by a viral infection in the breathing system. The virus infects the airways, especially the bronchi and the lungs. The inflammation causes an abnormal accumulation of inflamed cells in the airways, thus blocking the airways for free passage of air (King et al., 2018). This causes the constrictive breathing problem known as asthma.

There are various assessments that nurses conduct in diagnosing asthma in a patient. One of the assessments is the respiratory rate. Children with asthmatic or breathing problems have a higher respiratory rate than normal children. The pulse rate is another assessment measure that increases with constricted breathing. According to Turner (2018), asthma is characterized by a pulse rate above 100 bpm. The breathing patterns are also assessed. Asthma is associated with noisy and difficult breathing, and thus nurses should listen to the breathing sounds. Oxygen saturation is low for patients with asthma exacerbations and thus should be assessed in the diagnostic and monitoring process for asthma.

From the clinical shift experience, home care nurses provide highly patient-centered care in homes compared to hospitals. The nurses can closely monitor the patients medically and psychologically in ensuring that the patients. Timeliness in delivering the medications is an outstanding benefit of the home care program. One of the most interesting aspects of home care nurses is having a daily plan of medication and feeding for the child, which is rarely visible in hospital nursing care.

References

King, G. G., James, A., Harkness, L., & Wark, P. A. (2018). Pathophysiology of severe asthma: We’ve only just started. Respirology, 23(3), 262–271. https://doi.org/10.1111/resp.13251