\"Reply\" to your colleagues’ postings The topic of mental health can be uncomfo
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"Reply" to your colleagues’ postings
The topic of mental health can be uncomfortable for some people and I feel that's because they can't relate or don't understand what a person with a mental health disease is going through. The narrator in the short story Mending was interested and almost obsessed with her doctor, this could have developed due to her childhood and situations that occurred. Growing up it was only the narrator and her mother, they needed one another. When the mother was going through a breakup she would cuddle with her daughter who grew to love her mothers touch and her warmth. This quote helps show that the narrator enjoys her mother-daughter time "She gave me the warmth of her long, skinny arms, and I gave her the warmth of mine, and before I was ten years old, I was addicted" (Nadelhaft, 2008, p. 351). When her mother had a boyfriend the daughter, or narrator, would be left alone to sleep by herself.
This brings up the topic of patients in a hospital or health care setting, who are left alone at night when their family members leave to go home. These patients often don't feel comfortable spending the night in a hospital or nursing home. As a nursing student we are taught all about therapeutic communication which is used to help build a trusting relationship between the nurse and the patient. Trust is very important to build when taking care of a patient. Therapeutic communication is more than just a verbal thing. Using touch when it's appropriate can help to show the patient that you are there for them and that you care about them. Health care is a growing profession and the use of electronics is becoming more popular but we have to remember to not forget about human touch, every one of us needs human touch.
In this short story we were suppose to read I couldn't help but think about touch the whole time I was reading the story. The narrator wanted warmth and enjoyed her mothers touch and when it wasn't there anymore she wanted it. This is similar to patients who are being taken care of in hospitals or nursing homes, we need to take a little bit of time and really show the patients care by the simple act of touch.
Explanation / Answer
One of the most effective parts of non verbal communication and trust restoration is warmth and touch. For nursing students, this is especially important as they need to establish themselves as someone on whom the patient and his family can rely on, thinking that their lives depend on them. As taught in nursing process, non verbal communication makes up the base of any communication that the patient is carrying out with the nurse. The nurse can make hand gestures, especially with older adults and preschoolers, so that they wouldn’t feel afraid of any of the procedures that are about to be done. This trust is very important to be built, so that it would allow the patients to feel same in a new environment. Many patients may be deficit of attention, but these small acts may restore this deficit.
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