Santoninio, Justine Jay BSN 1A

Mouth Care in Nursing Homes: Knowledge, Beliefs, and Practices of Nursing

The purpose of this study was to examine the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of nursing
assistants (NAs) providing oral hygiene care to frail elders in nursing homes, with the intent of
developing an educational program for NAs. Methods: The study occurred in two economically
and geographically diverse nursing homes. From a sample size of 202 NAs, 106 returned the 19-
item Oral Care Survey. Results: The NAs reported satisfactory knowledge regarding the tasks
associated with providing mouth care. The NAs believed that tooth loss was a natural
consequence of aging. They reported that they provided mouth care less frequently than is
optimal but cited challenges such as caring for persons exhibiting care-resistive behaviors, fear
of causing pain, and lack of supplies. Conclusion: Nurses are in a powerful position to support
NAs in providing mouth care by ensuring that they have adequate supplies and knowledge to
respond to resistive behaviors.
Reference:
Jablonski, R. A., Munro, C. L., Grap, M. J., Schubert, C. M., Ligon, M., & Spigelmyer, P. (2009). Mouth
care in nursing homes: knowledge, beliefs, and practices of nursing assistants. Geriatric Nursing, 30(2),
99-107.

Reflection:
Oral care is vital component in nursing care since hygiene is essential in nursing care especially
for frail elders. Frail elders has weak immunity that is why it is important to have a wide
knowledge in this nursing practice.
Santoninio, Justine Jay BSN 1A

Enhancing patient safety through electronic medical record documentation of vital

As technology becomes more sophisticated in healthcare, there is increasing need to measure its
impact on key quality indicators, such as error reduction, patient safety, and cost-benefit ratios.
When a product is designed to decrease medical errors, the baseline error rate must be
determined before implementation to accurately measure the impact. Given the opportunity to
adopt a technology that would eliminate the need to manually document vital signs, a large
Florida hospital decided to measure the current process and error rate of vital signs
documentation. University Community Hospital in Tampa, Fla., designed a two-phase study to
evaluate this process. Phase I of the study evaluated errors in the electronic medical record and
traditional manual documentation. The results demonstrate that use of an EMR can reduce vital
sign documentation errors by more than half compared with traditional manual documentation in
paper charts. Researchers found the error rate for electronic vital signs documentation to be less
than 5 percent, compared with the paper chart error rate of 10 percent.
Reference: Gearing, P., Olney, C. M., Davis, K., Lozano, D., Smith, L. B., & Friedman, B. (2006).
Enhancing patient safety through electronic medical record documentation of vital signs. Journal of
healthcare information management: JHIM, 20(4), 40-45.

Reflection:
Vital signs is essential in monitoring patient’s condition during patient’s stay in a hospital it is
really necessary to upgrade to electronic devices in monitoring patient’s condition. This ensures
the safety of the patient during stay in the hospital.
Santoninio, Justine Jay BSN 1A

The Effect of Early Passive Range of Motion Exercise on Motor Function of People with Stroke:
a Randomized Controlled Trial

Frequent and regular exercises in the first six months of stroke may cause return of a significant
portion of sensory and motor function of patients. This study aimed to examine the effects of
passive range of motion exercise in the acute phase after stroke on motor function of the patients.
A randomized controlled trial study was conducted. The patients with first ischemic stroke were
randomly allocated to either experimental (n=33) or control (n=19) group. Passive range of
motion exercises was performed in the experimental group during the first 48 hours of admission
as 6 to 8 times of 30 minute exercise. Before intervention, and one and three months after
intervention, motor function were measured by muscle strength grading scale (Oxford scale) and
compared. In acute phase, the intervention in the experimental group led to significant
improvement of motor function between the first and third month in both the upper and lower
extremities. In control group, improvement was observed only in the muscle strength of upper
extremity in the first and third month compared to pre-intervention measurement. The greatest
improvement was observed in the interval from base to one month in the upper extremity, and
base to the first month and the first to the third month in the lower extremity. It is recommended
to use early passive range of motion exercise as part of care for people with stroke during the
acute phase of the disease.
Reference:
Hosseini, Z. S., Peyrovi, H., & Gohari, M. (2019). The effect of early passive range of motion exercise on
motor function of people with stroke: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of caring sciences, 8(1), 39.

Reflection:
Range of motion are making significant change to people with stroke according to the study.
Improvement of motor function of upper and lower extremities are observed as patients are
gaining muscle strength.
Santoninio, Justine Jay BSN 1A

The impact of death and dying on nursing students: an explanatory model

To explore nursing students' experiences of death and dying in clinical practice. The encounter
with death constitutes one of the most stressful experiences reported by nursing students during
their clinical training. In particular, it can be difficult for student nurses to cope with the patient's
suffering, to provide postmortem care and to communicate with the patient and his/her family as
death approaches. Although some research has been carried out in relation to this phenomenon,
there remains a need to identify and understand the situations and experiences that are of most
concern to students, those which may affect their ability to cope and, therefore, interfere with the
care they are able to offer to the dying patient and his/her family. The analysis identified five
themes: impact, training in end‐of‐life care, ethical issues, coping and learning/growth/healing
connections. The central theme was the enormous impact the encounter with death had, while the
other themes were a response to and/or modulators of this impact. An explanatory model was
derived on the basis of the relationship between all these emergent themes. It is essential to
understand nursing students' experience of death so as to minimise its impact. The explanatory
model described here could be a useful tool for the design of training programmes on end‐of‐life
care.
Reference:
Edo‐Gual, M., Tomás‐Sábado, J., Bardallo‐Porras, D., & Monforte‐Royo, C. (2014). The impact of death
and dying on nursing students: an explanatory model. Journal of clinical nursing, 23(23-24), 3501-3512.

Reflection:
Being able to witness a dying patient is part of being a health care provider and Nursing
procedure are needed to perform to maintain professionalism in facing this phenomenon. A nurse
has to learn the ability to cope up and handle this kind of situation this is why postmortem care is
a vital component in the clinical fields.