Delivery of Nursing Care Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Delivery of Nursing Care - Case Study Example The nurses in the intensive care unit have extensive roles and duties upon them that have to be performed with great precision and care. The management of the brain dead patient and his family is a very important part of the duty of intensive care unit nurses and extensive knowledge with regard to this subject is needed for the nurses to have expertise in this management. Accurate skills and knowledge are required by a nurse to assess a patient as being brain dead. The nurse should be able to effectively differentiate between brain death and cardiac death and should be able to explain to the family that brain death is a condition which cannot be reversed. She should also possess skills to counsel the family to allow for the organ donation of their patient. It is also the duty of the nurse to provide care to the patient so that his organs may be preserved for harvesting. The case of Joanne is also similar to who is a brain dead patient in the intensive care unit. Joanne has suffered f rom a ruptured berry aneurysm. A ruptured berry aneurysm is a common cause of hemorrhage in the brain and it is associated with a mortality rate of 50% (Yachnis and Rivera-Zengotita 2013). Her family is on their way and it is the nurse who has to manage the family upon the arrival. The nurse should inform the family regarding the situation of Joanne and provide support to the family. At the same time, the family should also be counseled for approval for organ donation. Pathophysiology of Berry Aneurysm A berry aneurysm is a point where a blood vessel in the Circle of Willis is weak and dilated. This weakness is mainly due to shortcomings in the proper formation of an artery, particularly at the points where they divide. The arteries at the weak points in the aneurysms only comprise of endothelium and an adventitia. The elastic lamina is not developed and the other muscular layers are also not structurally well-formed. A rise in the intravascular pressure at these points results in f urther dilatation which leads to rupturing of these aneurysms (Rubin and Reisner 2009).