An older man who has osteoarthritis (OA) tells the nurse that he has experienced fatigue for the past 2 weeks. Which nursing intervention should the nurse implement to help him manage his fatigue?
a. Recommend an antidepressant.
b. Help him plan exercise and rest.
c. Plan two or three naps every day.
d. Tell him the fatigue is due to his OA.
B
With no clues about the cause of the fatigue, the nurse helps this older adult balance exercise and rest to help alleviate fatigue. The fatigue can be due to decreased physical activity that, in turn, is due to pain from the OA, in which case a balance of exercise and rest should help attenuate the effects of the pain from the OA. This older adult has no indicators of depression except for fati-gue. Although a balance of rest and exercise can help relieve depressive symptoms, exercise is not an effective therapy for severe depression. Decreasing physical exercise is likely to contribute to fatigue and deconditioning. Fatigue is an unusual characteristic of OA.
You might also like to view...
An important function of a rigorous research design in a quantitative study is to have control over which of the following?
A) Outcome variables B) Mediating variables C) Carryover variables D) Confounding variables
A patient is exhibiting a lack of coordination, clumsy movements, and an unbalanced gait. What term should the nurse use when documenting these observations?
1. flaccidity 2. paralysis 3. hemiparesis 4. ataxia
A patient is being discharged on enoxaparin (Lovenox). Which statement does the nurse include in the discharge teaching plan?
a. "An advantage of this drug is that labs do not need to be drawn to guide therapy." b. "Follow-up lab work must be drawn every 2 to 6 months." c. "Enoxaparin is given intramuscularly twice a day." d. "The purpose of this drug is to dissolve clots."
A new psychoactive drug has completed phase three of the Food and Drug Administration's drug approval process and has been granted a labeled indication. A labeled indication denotes the:
A) Recommended doses and routes of the drug B) Use of the drug in the treatment of specific illnesses C) Most common adverse effects that have been observed to this point in testing D) Information that must appear on consumer packaging of the drug