Review the etiology, risk factors, clinical manifestations and the pathophysiology of cerebral vascular accident and choose one key point which you believe is significant to your practice as a nurse practitioner and answer the following question.

Describe your key point and discuss how the knowledge of your chosen key point impacts the care you provide as a nurse practitioner? The role of all registered nurses including advanced practice nurses is patient education. As such your answer should discuss a different manner by which this information impacts the care you provide as a nurse practitioner.

Review of Cerebro-vascular accident:

Cerebro-vascular accidents (CVA) can be described in simple terms as stroke, a medical emergency characterized by the sudden death of brain tissues or cells facilitated by oxygen shortage due to the blockage or rupturing of an artery to the brain tissues. There are various risk factors associated with the onset of a stroke, such as age, blockage condition in the heart, blood cholesterol levels, smoking, drinking, high blood pressure and even diabetes. The pathophysiology of a CVA is associated with underlying conditions of the heart, presence of any blockage and the past medical history of the patients. However, the most important factor associated with a cerebro- vascular accident that has the most implication for the practice scope of a nurse is the clinical manifestation of the CVA event (Naderi et al., 2014).

Clinical manifestation of CVA and its implication in nursing practice: 

The clinical manifestation of a cerebro- vascular accident depends entirely on the brain tissue that has been affected by the CVA event. The most common of the clinical manifestations is the paralysis in one side of the body, especially affecting the face, arms and legs. Other clinical manifestations of the stroke include confusion, troubled speech, blurred or blackened vision, sudden severe headache accompanied by nausea, and sudden dizziness. The registered nurse practice is based fundamentally on providing safe and effective patient centered care to the patient (Ware & Moore, 2017). The importance of clinical manifestation is paramount in case of patient centered care and as the particular symptoms exhibited by the patients will decide the path that the care plan will take. Along with that, the registered nurse practitioners must take into account the minute changes in the clinical manifestations of a stroke patients to check the efficiency of the care plan, whether the patient is improving or deteriorating. Hence, correct assessment and evaluation of clinical manifestations of the patient after a CVA event is crucial adhering to the patient centered safe and effective care standard of nursing practice (Naderi et al., 2014).

References: 

Naderi, N., Masoomi, H., Mozaffar, T., & Malik, S. (2014). Patient characteristics and comorbidities associated with cerebrovascular accident following acute myocardial infarction in the United States. International journal of cardiology, 175(2), 323-327.

Ware, R., & Moore, M. (2017). Validity of measures of neurological status used for predicting functional independence in adults after a cerebrovascular accident: a systematic review protocol. JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports, 15(3), 603-606.