Reflective Journal Week Ten: Stroke

Reflective Journal Week Ten Name Institutional Affiliation Reflective Journal Week Ten This week I decided to study rehabilitation as an intervention strategy in the management and treatment of stroke. Stroke occurs when the supply of blood to the brain is cut. Cells in the brain rely on oxygen to maintain their function and control of the body system. Mayo Clinic (2019) define stroke as “brain attack,” implying the inability of the whole body to function normally due to the destruction that rises from this attack. According to Tearsell and Hussein (2016), about 700,000 incidents of stroke are reported annually in the United States and only two thirds make it to recovery. This condition is a serious threat to the population, considering that it causes disability in addition to claiming lives. Rehabilitation process seeks to help the patient manage the condition and assume some normal functioning and prevent recurrence of stroke in future. Rehabilitation intervention targets the patient, the caregivers, and the family at large. During this week’s study, I realized that rehabilitation programs vary depending on the severity of the condition. In spite of this variation, the rehabilitation process starts immediately the patient is undergoing treatment in the hospital. The intervention does not end when the patient has completed treatment, but will extend to the clinic and progress at home even when the patient shows signs of improvement. Additionally, I have learned that stroke affects different parts of the brain, implying that the level of rehabilitation intervention varies among patients. There are two primary modes of rehabilitation interventions, each seeking to fulfill a specific purpose. Functional intervention is meant to address recovery of tasks and activities that involve physical movement. Spontaneous recovery addresses the cognitive memory functions that may have been impaired. While it is evident that patients spending time in rehabilitation centers recover faster than those that are out of rehabilitation center, the cost of these programs are unaffordable for some families. This creates for interventions that equip families and nurses with skills as leaders in the management and treatment of stroke. The advantage of including training programs is that it makes family members to be readily available when the patient develops complications in future. Even though rehabilitation starts after the first treatment has been administered, some parents cannot afford to cater for costs of medication and treatment while the patient is in hospital Training the nurses that handle this condition is an initial step for flexibility and relieving families from financial burdens. Families love their members and they will be willing to take every step to help their loved one. I think that nurses are not restricted to spending their entire lives in hospitals. In cases where there has been a shortage of nurses, some hospitals have been forced to recruit retired nurses to fill the gap. When nurses are trained as leaders in managing and transferring skills to society, it becomes easy to tackle stroke from the hospital and society level. According to Mayo Clinic (2019), insurance cover does not care for rehabilitation programs once the p...