Alone with all this Pain: Treating a Herpes Zoster Geriatric Patient in a Rural Clinic in Israel - Abstract
Pain has become a topic of much interest amongst health care teams especially among nurses. The literature suggests that about one out of seven members of the elderly population is reported to have chronic pain. Herpes Zoster occurs predominantly in the older adult population. This elderly population age 65 and up is ever increasing and their health and welfare needs represent a growing challenge. Occasionally health care teams invest more effort into reducing pain than relating to the patient as a whole. This paper presents a nursing case study that illustrates that rural nurses see the patient as a whole because of the nature of their work in the community, and positively influence chronic geriatric patient care. Geriatric patients suffering from pain have the opportunity to interact with the nurse on a daily basis in the rural setting thereby supporting a bio-psychosocial approach to care and recovery