NURS 6512N-26: Advanced Health Assessment

INITIAL POST

Scenario #2: A 49-year-old woman with advanced stage cancer has been admitted to the

emergency room with cardiac arrest. Her husband and one of her children accompanied the

ambulance.

Assessment and Diagnostic Information:

1. How long has she been unresponsive?

2. Does your wife/mother have an advanced directive?

3. Who is her oncologist?

4. Do you know your wife’s/mother’s wishes if she were to stop breathing or her heart

stopped?

5. Would you like us to continue life-saving efforts such as CPR and possibly put a

breathing tube in her lungs and place her on life support?

6. Would you like spiritual care present?

7. I would continue to monitor her vital signs and heart rhythm, following ACLS protocol

until/unless an advanced directive were presented or family decided upon withdrawal or

continuation of care, or until all life-saving measures were exhausted and futile.

End-of-life issues are always difficult to deal with, as well as emotional, for both the family

and the clinicians. In this situation, I would promote the family to be at the bedside while lifesaving techniques were being performed so as to enable the family to understand the reality of

the situation, witness the extent of life-saving measures, and allow for a goodbye, if necessary

(Jabre et al., 2013). I would also discuss the realities of quality of life if resuscitation were

successful, and focus on what the family thinks the patient would want to enable autonomy,

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