[Applying Swanson`s Caring Theory to a Patient With End Renal Stage Disease Experiencing Hopelessness].

This article describes an experience providing nursing care to a patient under hemodialysis with the end-stage renal disease who had developed depression, loathing, and other, negative personal perceptions and gradually gave up on life goals due to hopelessness. The duration of nursing care, from August 23rd through August 29th, 2019, was revisited to identify the patient`s hopelessness in the dimensions of physiology, mental status, society, and spirituality. The author applied Swanson`s Caring Theory to facilitate the process of "knowing" and "being with" while performing direct nursing care and attentive listening to assist the patient to become more open-minded and to express personal perceptions toward the disease with the goal of further engaging the patient to increase self-awareness recognition, sense of loss, and negative perceptions. Through "doing for" and "enabling," the author reinforced infection control and identified the symptoms of fluid-overload, moisture, and salinity to raise the patient`s self-awareness and self-caring techniques and to lower the risk of hospitalization. Meanwhile, by "maintaining the patient`s belief," accompanied by the encouragement and attention from family members and providing linkages to patient-support communities, the patient was guided to identify and aggregate to foster positive thinking and self-worth to increase acceptance of living with the disease. Nursing personnel may apply Swanson`s Caring Theory to better consider the patient`s perspective, provide individual caring schemes, and strengthen the recognition, self-caring techniques and supportive systems of patients, increasing patient perceptions of self-worth, restoring their confidence, promoting their adaption to their disease, and improving attentiveness.

Effects of thread depth, taper shape, and taper length on the mechanical properties of mini-implants.

INTRODUCTION: The primary stability of a mini-implant is critical, since most orthodontic mini-implant failures occur at an early stage. As orthodontic mini-implants have restrictions in diameter and length, an optimal design of the shape is important for sufficient primary stability. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of various mini-implants design factors, including thread depth, degree of taper, and taper length on insertion torque, pullout strength, stiffness, and screw displacement before failure. METHODS: Finite element analyses were conducted first for identification of optimal design parameters. Four types of mini-implants with different design parameters were then custom manufactured and tested mechanically. All mechanical tests were performed in artificial bone with homogenous density to remove the variability associated with bone. RESULTS: Finite element results showed that, for mini-implants with a fixed external diameter of 2 mm, a thread length of 9.82 mm, and a pitch of 0.75 mm, those with greater thread depths, smaller taper degrees, and shorter taper lengths generated higher maximum stresses on the bone and thread elements. These mini-implants also had larger relative displacements. Maximum pullout resistance was attained with a core/external diameter ratio of 0.68. All mechanical results were compatible with the findings in the finite element analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Modification of the mini-implant design can substantially affect the mechanical properties. The finite element method is an effective tool to identify optimal design parameters and allow for improved mini-implant designs.