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Postoperative cognitive decline or dysfunction (POCD) is common and prolonged, often with adverse consequences for older adults. Recent research on POCD in older adults is reviewed and nursing implications are discussed., The objective of this systematic review is to describe the most recent literature on postoperative cognitive decline or dysfunction (POCD) of older adults to help nurses identify patients at highest [...]

Gardner, H. (2008). Five minds for the future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Howard Gardner's book Five Minds for the Future has recently been released in paperback by the Harvard [...]

This article contrasts the assumptions and concepts of two distinct approaches, the medical model and Parse's human becoming theory, as applied in a nurse-managed capitated community healthcare program for older adults. Many nurses incorporate aspects of the medical model into their practice without fully appreciating the implications or being aware of alternative perspectives. Within capitated health programs a nursing practice based on a nursing theory which emphasizes an intersubjective dialogue with older adults as they move toward different meanings and free choice is seen as more likely to be associated with greater satisfaction and reduced healthcare expenditures than a nursing approach based on the medical model, which relies on the objectification of human experience. Nurses can best balance the problem-focused orientation of a medical model dominated healthcare system by adopting an approach committed to recognizing that persons are the coauthors of their existence.

The number of children living in shelters in the United States dramatically increased during the 1980s. Despite this increase in number, little is known about their experiences. The purpose of this research using Parse's method was to generate a structure of the lived experience of feeling uncomfortablefor children in shelters. The investigator sought to expand nursing's knowledge base about feeling uncomfortable and to provide a better understanding of the experiences of children in families with no place of their own. The findings suggest that the lived experience of feeling uncomfortable for the participants is a disturbing uneasiness with the unsureness of aloneness with togetherness amidst longing for personal joyful moments.These findings, considered from Parse's human becoming theory, create a theoretical structure of feeling uncomfortable. Similarities and differences with related literature are discussed. Implications for practice and further research are offered.

The Parse research method is a human science based nursing research methodology which views young children as partners in research about universal lived experiences. To view children in this way requires a considerable revision of the view of children assumed in many traditional theories of childhood and in research with children. In the human science paradigm, persons of all ages are viewed as human beings who make choices and assign meaning. In accord with the assumptions of the Parse research method, children are considered the experts about their health and capable of contributing to nurses' understanding of the human-universe-health process. The remarkable variation of children's thoughts, feelings and actions testifies to the complex and open nature of human becoming at all ages. Children's thoughts, feelings, and imaginings are made more accessible with the aid of art, stories, and play when offered in true presence.

In the past decade there has been a dramatic rise in the number of children living in shelters in the United States. The traditional literature suggests that these children are at risk for various developmental, educational, and health problems, and that they are in need of assistance. Psychoanalytic theory and Parse's human becoming theory have fundamentally different views of human nature and of human activities such as artistic expression. While both theories can contribute to the present understanding of the experience of children in shelters and provide frameworks for a shelter-based nursing practice, it is suggested in this article that psychoanalytic theory is reductionistic and prescriptive and may close rather than open new possibilities.

The purpose of the research reported here was to explore with mothers and children the experience of having no place of their own. The researcher used Parse's theory of human becoming as a framework in this exploratory descriptive study. For the participants in this study the experience of living without a place of their own is: a sense of gratitude for protection, mingling with the discomfort of restriction and exposure, giving riseto fears and reassurances as detachment from cherished others surfaces discordance with unfamiliar patterns, while novel engagements bring pleasure as insights and struggles surface new possibles as well as disillusionment.Suggestions for theory expansion and further research are discussed.