Nursing Care for Medulloblastoma

Nurses have a vital role in the care of pediatric cancer patients. They are able to assess the coping mechanisms of not only the patient, but also of their family and loved ones. Based on the coping mechanisms observed, the nurse can provide emotional support and encourage the family to find coping strategies that work for them. The nurse should also encourage loved ones to continue to provide self-care for themselves. Often, parents of a child with some form of cancer will neglect all self-care for themselves and fully invest themselves in the care of their child. This is not sustainable and can lead to a lot of parent burn-out. Therefore, parents and caregivers should be encouraged to actively make their own self-care a priority. Nurses can foster this through small things such as offering to sit in the patient's room while they go get coffee and go on a walk.

Nurses are also responsible for all medication administration to these patients. Often, drugs used for chemotherapy can be very harmful to the veins and can cause a lot of pain when they are being administered. It is the nurse's responsibility to put interventions in place that can either help reduce this pain or distract the child from the pain so that their medications can be appropriately delivered. This can often involve recruiting help from loved ones at the bedside who may be able to provide input into techniques that have worked in the past.

The specific nursing care for a child with a brain tumor will depend on a lot of outside variables including: the age of the patient, the specific type of tumor they had, the family dynamics, the treatments that they will be undergoing, and current neurological symptoms they are experiencing. The nurse will have to continually assess where the patient and their family is at and adjust the care that they are providing appropriately.

No matter where the patient is at, education will be a huge part of the nursing care. Both the patient and their family will need to be educated on what kind of symptoms they can expect, what different treatment options will look like, what kind of side effects may be observed, and how they can best care for themselves when they are outside of the hospital. The nurse will also play a role in helping the family and the patient reenter the world outside of the hospital. They should be educated on supplies to have at home/on them at all times and should be emotionally supported as they prepare to reenter school. Often times, children may struggle with how their classmates will view them as they go back to school with some neurological deficits. No kid wants to seem "different" and it is very hard to not be different when you are coming back to school with a walker after being away from so long. The nurse should be prepared to address these difficult feelings as they come up.

Being a nurse in a cancer care unit requires a lot. It is a job that asks you to be knowledgable, compassionate, friendly, and empathetic. Nurses in these environments truly do some amazing work and can have a huge impact on the lives of their patients.

References:

http://nandanursing.com/nursing-care-plan-for-brain-tumor-intracranial-tumor.html

Cartwright, C. (2007). Nursing Care of the Pediatric Neurosurgery Patient. Berlin: Springer.