Clinical Nursing Skills: Care For Patients With Gastrointestinal Illnesses

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The Alison free online course “Nursing Studies – Clinical Skills: The Digestive System” is designed to ensure that you have the knowledge and skills necessary to provide effective care and assistance to any patients who are experiencing gastrointestinal difficulties that you may find in your care.

This nursing course will be of great interest to all health care professionals who would like to learn more about good nursing practices and techniques that help protect and maintain the health and safety of both the nursing professional and patient

Nurse in training — Photo by JPhilipson on Flickr

Nursing Studies – Clinical Skills: The Digestive System – Course Content

In this course, you will learn the key clinical nursing skills and techniques to care for patients with gastrointestinal illnesses. The course includes the following topics:

The function of the digestive system;
Proteins, carbohydrates and fatty acids, how they are broken down in the digestive system and provide fuel for the body’s metabolism;
The digestive system and how each part functions in order to ingest, break up and carry food so that digestion can take place;
The lower digestive system, such as the intestines, pancreas and liver and how they produce enzymes and gastric juices to help in the absorption of food;
Various diagnostic procedures for identifying disorders of the gastrointestinal system such as auscultation, endoscopy, stool samples and gastric analysis;
How to identify the various signs and symptoms which show that a patient is need of consultation with a physician;
The steps and procedures for gastric and intestinal intubation;
The different types of gastrointestinal disorders such as gastritis, gastroenteritis, peritonitis, ulcers and intestinal obstructions;
How to identify the symptoms and differing treatments for each disorder;
Hepatitis and cirrhosis – the steps involved in the assessment and monitoring of a patient’s status to aid recovery;
Diabetes, how it is caused, how to identify the symptoms, as well as emergency treatment procedures.