The nurse is assigned to care for a patient with chronic low back pain. What adjustment in pain management does the nurse expect to make?
a. Encouraging the patient to hold off taking a pain drug as long as possible to re-duce the potential for addiction.
b. Relying on patient report of pain rather than on changes in heart rate, blood pres-sure, and pulse rate.
c. Keeping the environment as quiet as possible to avoid distracting or irritating the patient.
d. Using nondrug measures in place of analgesics to relieve the patient's pain.
B
Adaptation to the presence of chronic pain is physiologic, not psychological. Thus the usual al-terations in physiologic parameters when acute pain is present do not accompany chronic pain.
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