Bandaging & Dressing and Signs & Symptoms of Illnesses & Diseases

What.. Why.. When.. Where.. How..?

1. WHY is bandaging important?
 To hold dressings & gauzes in place, and to stop bleeding/blood loss.

2. HOW do you apply a bandage?
 a.) Hold the bandage with the roll uppermost and start to roll around the wound upwards. For every turn, use a firm even pressure.
 b.) With each turn, cover 2/3s of the width of the previous one. Avoid covering the tips of the fingers and toes. Fasten the bandage with a small safety pin or a bandage clip.

3. WHAT is dressing?

 A dressing is an adjunct used by a person for application to a wound to promote healing and/or prevent further harm. A dressing is designed to be in direct contact with the wound, which makes it different from a bandage, which is primarily used to hold a dressing in place. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dressing_%28medical%29)

4. WHEN will you apply dressing? 

 You apply dressing when the patient is having a severe bleeding from his/her cut or wound.

5.  WHERE can you check the body temperature? (In what parts of the body)

 You can check the body temperature by your mouth, your armpit or your rectum.

Making the Bed & Bathing the Patient

Making a Bed
1. Why do we need to know how to make an unoccupied and occupied bed?
 - So that we can do it all by ourselves when there is a real patient who we are taking care of.

2. How does making a bed help in the fast recovery of our patient?

 - It can help them rest well until they get better, and a clean & good bed makes the patient feel comfortable that can make them able to rest well.

3. As a good home nurse, how will you be able to render your services to your patient through bed making?
 -  By doing & practicing the home nursing skills to do it well to them with respect, love & care.

 Bathing the Patient

1. Why do you need to give a bath to the patient?
 -  To cleanse & refresh the patient.

2. What are the materials needed for bed bath or sponge bath?
 -  Basin with warm water, 2 big towels, 2 small towels, rubber sheet, soap & a light blanket.

3. What’s the importance of using a urinal or bedpan?
 -  It is important if the patient is expected to remain bedridden for a long period of time.

4. What do you mean by back rub?
 - It is given to the patient to refresh the patient.

5. How do you differentiate cold compress from hot compress?
 -  Cold compress is an absorbent cloth is dipped into a cold water, wrung out & applied to a body part to relieve pain or reduce inflammation or used as a comfort measure. While hot compress is the application of heat to a small area with hot gauze or hot compress cloth. It relieves pain & congestion.

Home Nursing Techniques

1.  If you are a good home nurse, what are the various home nursing techniques that you need to apply that will make the patient feel comfortable and speed up the recovery?

For me, these could be the home nursing techniques that I can apply to them:

 - Making an unoccupied & occupied bed

- Taking the patients vital signs

- Bathing the patient

2.  Why should the home nurse monitor the vital signs of the patient? 

Because we can know what or how are they feeling when we monitor their vital signs.

3.  How do you take the body temperature, pulse rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure of the patient?

A thermometer on body temperature, your finger or a pulse rate monitor for the pulse rate, a stethoscope on respiratory rate & a Sphygmomanometer on the blood pressure.

4.  What are some practices that the home nurse must follow that will
           promote comfort to the patient?

 Make them comfortable being patient & be their friend, like making them happy or laugh.

5.  How will you differentiate signs from symptoms of illnesses and
           diseases?

 Signs are what doctors can see while the symptoms are what the patient feels or experiences.

6.  If you are the doctor, what will be your basis in giving the diagnosis for your patient?

 I will be responsible and my basis would be following the right observation to let the patient feel better soon and that I can be relieved that my patient is okay knowing that I am his/her doctor.

Administering medicines to the patient..

I have learned a lot of significant insights from our topic during the last few days. One was on administering medicines to a patient, the eye drops, ear drops, nasal drops, tablets & the cream. I have learned that these medicines and knowing on how to put them are very important. Each group was to demonstrate how to put the following medicine to a patient. We were assigned on the eye drops.

When putting on eye drops, you should first read the instruction, prescription, also the expiration date. The patient leans backward, and slowly put on one drop of the eye drop, same with the nasal drops. In the ear drops, the patient leans sideward. Tablets are being taken by swallowing it & cream/lotion for your outer skin.

The proper administering of medicines to our patient can help our patients to recover faster because these medicines help the patient to be stronger and to remove the illness or sickness from them. The eye drops help relieve itchiness or redness of the eyes, it can help on sore eyes too. The nasal drops can prevent nose clogging & colds. The ear drops can help our ears to get well faster, especially when you have ear infections or the like. We take tablets or syrups to help prevent our head from aching or our stomach. And also the lotion/cream can help your skin from itchiness or allergies, too.

Why do you think health care to the individual, to the family and to the community is important?

"Why do you think health care to the individual, to the family and to the community is important?"

Well for me, first of all, it is important to help us know how they are feeling. The health care can help us in developing a well & better health condition by ourselves. We have the health care to avoid being sick, and because of it we wouldn't be remaining healthy today. 

Health care is important to the individual, just so one can know how to prevent becoming ill & injured when you cannot afford to spend a lot and overreacting to your health. 

Health care is important to the family, too, of course. Why? First, it helps one another be healthy that there's no need to spend a lot in a hospital just because one got ill. For example, your brother has chickenpox and it can spread by touching him, then touching your eyes or mouth or nose, and what do you have? Chickenpox, too! That's why Healthcare is here to help us avoid from viruses and help us care about each one's health condition.

Health care is also important to everyone, the community, because it treats and also administers the health of the people and cares to the needs of one another. 

With proper and good healthcare, we can take advantage of supporting the beneficial end-of-life services offered through an assortment of the health care programs.