Clinical Experience: Reflection on Hypoglycemia Management in Ward

This is a reflective journal entry detailing an encounter with an elderly patient experiencing hypoglycemia during a clinical placement. The student reflects on the initial feelings of tension and the subsequent actions taken to assess and treat the patient, who had a history of Type 1 diabetes. The reflection includes an evaluation of the situation, analyzing the causes of the hypoglycemic episode, and the effectiveness of glucagon treatment. The student concludes with key learnings about emergency situations in a medical ward, the importance of critical thinking, and the application of acquired skills and knowledge. An action plan is also proposed, emphasizing lifestyle management and nutritional therapy for patients with diabetes to improve their quality of life. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments for students.

Running Head: LOW BLOOD SUGAR
LOW BLOOD SUGAR
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Reflection for last two weeks
Description
During the last two weeks of my clinical placement in the medical ward I came across
a patient with low blood sugar. The patient was elderly and could not even walk without the
help from his son and wife. People who have diabetes often get low blood sugar levels or
hypoglycemia when there is not enough sugar available to the body for use. These conditions
can arise due to large number of reasons like diet, exercise or other medical conditions. The
symptoms for low blood glucose includes dizziness, blurred vision, nausea, lack of
concentration and much more. That day in hospital was very much stressful as I had not
experienced such scenarios previously (Feinmann et al.,2015).
Feelings
At first when the patient came to the ward I got really tensed as the patient had lost
consciousness. I went up to them and collected all the necessary information needed for the
further diagnosis of the patient. I came to know that the patient has lost consciousness after
walking for a long time. He was also diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and thus, the heavy
walking has caused the old man exhaustion leading to hypoglycemic conditions. The changes
in the blood glucose levels along with walking has caused some metabolic changes in the
patient’s body that has accelerated the need of body glucose levels.
Evaluation
The situation was evaluated on the basis of the medical condition of the patient. Thus,
my first step towards the treatment of the patient was to provide him with glucose externally
so that the plasma glucose levels will be restored. However, there are several barriers to the
insulin therapy that is generally used by the clinicians to treat the patients and to increase
their blood glucose levels (Rasheed & Chenoweth,2017).

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Analysis
It has been reported that the patients with type 1 diabetes are supposed to experience
episodes of hypoglycemia due to insulin doses or reduced food intake. As the patient has
done extensive walking it has caused him to get a low blood sugar level. Glucagon treatment
has caused the patient to increase the glucose levels by stimulating the adenylate cyclase and
thus increased production of cyclic AMP (Turksoy et al.,2016).
Conclusion
The conclusion that I drew from my experiences in the last two weeks of my hospital
placement is that there can be any emergency situation the patient who is already admitted in
the medical ward. That time demands critical thinking from the nurses to be able to deal the
stress and to carefully handle the emergency situations. My training skills and knowledge has
helped me to gain the right confidence to deal with all kinds of situations that can arise any
time even in the medical ward.
Action Plan
The action plan that can be implemented in this case is that the patient should take
care of his daily chores. He should avoid heavy exercise and should implement nutritional
therapy in his daily diet (Evert et al.,2014). The patient should also manage his lifestyle
habits. Lifestyle management can really be an effective tool to improve the quality of life of
the individuals with diabetes (Care.diabetesjournals.org, 2019). If the routine is followed by
the patients dedicatedly it will help them to lead a happy and cheerful life.

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References
American Diabetes Association. (2018). 4. Lifestyle management: standards of medical care
in diabetes—2018. Diabetes Care, 41(Supplement 1), S38-S50.
Chenoweth, I. (2017). Barriers that practitioners face when initiating insulin therapy in
general practice settings and how they can be overcome. World journal of
diabetes, 8(1), 28.
Evert, A. B., Boucher, J. L., Cypress, M., Dunbar, S. A., Franz, M. J., Mayer-Davis, E. J., ...
& Yancy, W. S. (2014). Nutrition therapy recommendations for the management of
adults with diabetes. Diabetes care, 37(Supplement 1), S120-S143.
Feinman, R. D., Pogozelski, W. K., Astrup, A., Bernstein, R. K., Fine, E. J., Westman, E.
C., ... & Nielsen, J. V. (2015). Dietary carbohydrate restriction as the first approach in
diabetes management: critical review and evidence base. Nutrition, 31(1), 1-13.
Shafiee, G., Mohajeri-Tehrani, M., Pajouhi, M., & Larijani, B. (2012). The importance of
hypoglycemia in diabetic patients. Journal of diabetes & Metabolic disorders, 11(1),
17.
Turksoy, K., Kilkus, J., Hajizadeh, I., Samadi, S., Feng, J., Sevil, M., ... & Cinar, A. (2016).
Hypoglycemia detection and carbohydrate suggestion in an artificial
pancreas. Journal of diabetes science and technology, 10(6), 1236-1244.