The Clinical Practice of Neurological and Neurosurgical Nursing

A comprehensive text providing detailed information on assessing and caring for patients with neurological and neurosurgical problems. Topics discussed include neuroanatomy and physiology, assessment and diagnostic evaluation, and neurological problems like seizures and brain/spinal cord tumours.

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A book intended for speciality medicine/surgery courses in neuro nursing, nurses in clinical practice in intensive care units, emergency care departments, neurological and neurosurgical speciality units and for advanced continuing education or in-service education courses. A comprehensive text, providing detailed information on assessing and caring for patients with neurological and neurosurgical problems. Regarded as the classic text in the field, it covers a wide range of clinical topics, including neuroanatomy and physiology, neurological assessment and diagnositic evaluation and care of patients with specific neurological problems (unconsciousness; increased intracranial pressure; brain tumours and spinal cord tumours; neurological trauma cerebrovascular problems, headaches, seizures, CNS infections, degenerative neurological diseases etc). Hickey discusses special considerations in caring for neurological patients, including nutritional and psychological needs; ethics, rehabilitation and patient teaching. She uses a nursing process framework with nursing diagnoses in describing the planning and delivery of nursing care.
The book highlights key points of nursing considerations in special charts and care plans, and identifies collaborative problems, emphasizing the collaborative role of the nurse. Features new to this edition include an increased application of nursing diagnosis and a new chapter on ethical and legal issues in neuroscience nursing practice. It provides new information on AIDS and its effects on the nervous system (AIDS dementia complex); lymees disease, status epilepticus; new classification of stroke; ICP wave form interpretation; fibre optic transducers in ICP monitoring; endarterectomy; transphenoidal hypophysectomy, use of the gamma knife and endovascular balloon therapy. In addition there is expanded coverage of multisystem problems, chemotherapeutic treatment of brain tumours; holistic management; mechanism of brain injury; postoperative complications of intracranial surgery and new treatment options for cerebrovascular anomalies.