The Journal of neuroscience nursing : journal of the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses
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This study reports the survival rate and short-term neurologic outcome of children who sustained cardiac arrests at Henrietta Egleston Hospital for Children, a pediatric teaching hospital. A commonly held belief in pediatric centers has been that children tolerate the insult of cardiac arrest better than adults. Cardiac arrest was defined as the need for external or internal cardiac compressions. ⋯ Results showed that despite a low overall survival rate, neurological outcome appears to be good after the arrest even in patients who expire prior to discharge. Major neurologic deficits, such as hemiplegia and severe developmental delay, do not occur. Nursing implications of the study, which is in its second year, are discussed.
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Nursing diagnosis was introduced into the neuroscience intensive care unit (NSICU) of the Medical College of Virginia in 1984 as a framework for naming the problems nurses treat. During this process, there was concern about using nursing diagnosis terminology to describe common NSICU problems. ⋯ A descriptive study of patients who received this nursing diagnosis in our NSICU was designed and implemented one year later. This study identified patient characteristics and independent and interdependent nursing interventions.