The Faces of Bipolar
Abstract
There are many faces of bipolar in just one person. Sometimes it is hard and nearly impossible for the patient to control their emotions and actions when those feelings are out of their control. As a nurse, we will come into contact with many mental disorders outside of the psychiatric institution setting. Many patients are admitted to the hospital with mental disorders, whether it's due to the mental disorder causing the health problem or the health problem causing the mental disorder. As nurses, we have to be prepared. With the help, patience, and understanding of the staff caring for the patients with bipolar and other mental disorders in the medical-surgical setting, dealing with the disorder becomes a little easier for the patient. This paper will apply psychiatric nursing to the bipolar patient admitted onto the medical-surgical floor and explore how this mental status affected his physical condition.
The Faces of Bipolar
As I walked onto the neurological unit of the hospital floor, I noticed one patient being monitored on a computer screen. I found this to be very odd because he seemed to be stable and no other patients were being monitored by cameras. Putting my predictions aside, I found my nurse and began to make rounds on her patients. During the report, one of the nurses stated, "He has been on the call light all night and he barely got any sleep. If it wasn't for the tech, I would have not gotten any work done". Just as the reporting nurse was finishing her statement, a call light went off. I immediately noticed it was coming from the room with the patient being monitored on the computer screen. I was told that this patient has bipolar and has a signed consent to be monitored for his safety.
This patient was a 61-year-old male from Missouri. He currently lives in an assisted living group home where nurses and aids help with his activities of daily living and medication administration. This patient has a long history of mental disorders on both sides of his family. His mother was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, which was treated with shock therapy and medication. His father, on the other hand, was schizophrenic. He too was treated with shock therapy and medication but was in and out of mental institutions or "lock up in bird cages" as the patient called it. This patient fits this assignment because he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and COPD and has been in and out of mental institutions and hospitals ever since.
Conditions That Contributed To the Current Problem
This patient was admitted from the assisted living facility through the ambulance. During the initial assessment by the EMTs, his oxygen saturation was 85%, and the patient was admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of pneumonia and hypoxemia. In the days leading up to his hospitalization, the patient stated that he felt depressed and weak. He would just lie around because he didn't feel like doing any activiti...
