School Medical Care: Protecting At-Risk Children - Essay Sample

Introduction

School children comprise of the highest at-risk population. Apart from their spirit of adventure and discovery that might expose them to injuries, there are students who have serious medical conditions that require regular supervision, and medical intervention. There is also government regulation that requires each school to have a medical specialist, and a nurse., the school's staff should also be trained on how to provide care for common condition suchness diabetes, obesity, seizures, and epilepsy. By examining how nurses can provide care for common health conditions among the 7th-grade students, the researcher argues that nurses should be informed about the common conditions among the students to enable the nurse to anticipate such conditions and prepare adequately.

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Blood Pressure

Grade 7 a student is aged between 12 and 13 years therefore, therefore, their normal blood pressure should be that of a normal 13-year-old child. The normal low-pressure of 13 years old is made up of a systolic range of 95-140 mmHg and diastolic range of 60-90 mmHg. A systolic blood pressure (SBP) above 130 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure (DPB) above 85 mmHg is considered a high blood pressure among the 7th graders (Halfon, Tamir & Bronner, 1987). It is important to ensure that the blood pressure is accurately measured and a cutoff point is set between the normal and high blood pressure.

Obesity

The CDC's Recommendations for School-Based Obesity Prevention

According to the CDC, the schools should be a priority setting or preventing childhood obesity because it affects 1in every 5 students between the age of 6 and 19 in America. A comprehensive approach which is considered the most effective strategy to address childhood obesity in schools includes addressing the school's nutrition and physical activities that are carried out in schools (Selekman, 2013). The comprehensive strategy also involves engaging the parents, their caregiver as well as major community members including pediatricians and any agency that provides after-school programs. The main goal of such an approach is to support the student's health and wellbeing. The approach is not intended to single out specific students based on their weight status. In most cases, schools avoid shaming students by not emphasizing physical appearances of any form of negative stereotypes about obesity that can be reinforced.

Strategies for Managing Obesity in Schools

• Strategies Actions to be taken as school health professional.
• Use of coordinated approach to implementing healthy eating and physical activities policies The nurse should develop a multidisciplinary team approach
• Engaging parents and other staff members in meal designs and physical activity development
• Develop a supportive school environment for eating and physical activity Liaise with the school board to change school programs
• Adopt a flexible scheduling system to allow for physical activity
• Provide quality meal programs with appealing meal choices Employ a food and nutrition professionals to design schools means in consideration of the school community
• Implement comprehensive physical activity programs Make physical activity programs mandatory for all students in the school
• Work with specialists to develop age-appropriate physical activity programs.
• Provide health education to the Students Change school policy to include health education programs
• Make health education mandatory for all students per month
• Ensure that students are provided with health, mental health, and social services Provide a differentiated meal to the student. ensure that each student students receives age and health appropriate meals
• Liaise and partner with the family members and community members to develop and Implement healthy eating. Work with parents and other community members to improve the supply of fresh farm produce
• Develop policies for healthy eating in the community

All school employees should be provided with wellness programs covering healthy eating, and physical activity. Work with the school administration to make it mandatory for all school employees to undergo intensive training programs on wellness, eating and physical activity

Each school must employ a qualified person to provide all the necessary professional development opportunities for education, nutrition services, and health, mental health, and social services.

Talk with the school administration to employ qualified health professionals or dieticians with whom patient care duties can be delegated

Seizure

Seizures mainly refer to the sudden and controlled electrical disturbance in the patient's brain. Seizures usually result in serious behavers change of changes in the movement, feeling or consciousness. Recurring seizures can be termed epilepsy (Selekman, 2013). There are two main types of seizures that a student can have and this must be determined before a medical intervention by the school health professional initiates care. The seizures can either be focal seizure or generalized seizures. The focal seizure can either be a focal seizure with retained awareness or with loss awareness. The generalized seizures can be petit mal, grand mall, atonic seizure, clinic seizure, tonic seizures or myoclonic seizure.

Syndromes of Seizures

Syndrome Explanation of the Syndrome

A Localized Related Idiopathic Epilepsy Syndrome

localized related idiopathic epilepsy refers to the benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes or benign Rolande epilepsy. This seizure is autosomal Dominic genetic disorders and most common among those between age 3 and 13 years. In most case, the peak incidences of the seizures occur been age 5 and 9 years. The seizures usually occur within 3 hours of falling asleep and the patient may first develop a twitch on one side of the face and tongue as well as somatosensory symptoms

Localized Related S Symptomatic Epilepsy Syndrome

The epilepsies partialism continues is mainly characterized by muscles twitches in specific parts of the body such as the distal limbs and face. This seizure can last up to one hour depending on the cerebral disorder that underlying the seizure

Generalized Idiopathic Epilepsy Syndromes

The generalized idiopathic epilepsy syndromes refer the childhood absence epilepsy which is more frequent among girls. The onset of the epilepsy is between age 5 and 10 and might include the absence of seizures. In at least 30% of the individualized the childhood absence epilepsy, the generalized tonic-clonic seizures usually occur and can easily be triggered by hyperventilation

Generalized Cryptogenic Epilepsy Syndromes

The generalized cryptogenic epilepsy syndrome also referred to the west syndromes is one of the catastrophic epilepsy syndromes consisting of the infantile spasms. In other cases, there are incidences of psychomotor retardation. It is mainly caused by nonstructural abnormalities, metabolic disorders as well as drug administration.

Undetermined Epilepsy Syndrome

Undetermined epilepsy syndrome refers to the landau-Klinkner syndromes or the acquired epileptic aphasia. The onset of LKS is between 2 and 11 years. Those children with this type of epilepsy are likely to develop along normal trajectory before they start exhibiting the symptoms of the LKS. In most case, the children exhibit language regression with verbal auditory agnosia and decline in spontaneous oral expression which finally leads to diminished speech.

Specified Syndrome Febrile Seizures or Complex Febrile Seizures

School Health Considerations for the Use of Diastat and Midazolam

Nursing tasks should not be delegated to unlicensed persons. it is important to ensure that the laws of the state allow the delegation of nursing takes without which the nurse and the schools might face legal issues. Diastat is a nursing task that requires the nurse to assess, evaluate and use nursing skills to judge medical conditioner a patient. As such, the nurse should not delegate the administration of the drugs to an unlicensed person (Selekman, 2013).Diastat is usually rectally administered. This means that the patient's privacy and disinvite is at risk and should always be preserved. There should be no students in the area where the Diastat is administering Diastat to a seizure patient. It is also the duty of the nurse to ensure that the students are prevented from entering the room where theist is being administered to protect the privacy of the sick students. Finally, Diastat requires the use of drapes to protect the piracy of the student.

Conclusion

Therefore, the nurse should have a ready emergency kit in school after realizing that there are students who might experiences seizures attack. Each student experiencing seizures requires an emergency kit which means that the school should have an emergency kit for each student.

References

Halfon, S., Tamir, D., & Bronner, S. (1987). Determinants of blood pressure in 7th grade Jerusalem school children. European Journal of Epidemiology, 3(1), 39-45. Doi: 10.1007/bf00145071

Nihiser, A., Merlo, C., & Lee, S. (2013). Preventing Obesity through Schools. The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 41(2_suppl), 27-34. Doi: 10.1111/jlme.12106

Selekman, J. (2013). School nursing: A comprehensive text (2nd). Newark, DE: F.A. Davis Company.