Nursing Diagnoses

Persons with sciatica are at risk for the following nursing diagnoses:

• Risk for activity intolerance
• Impaired walking
• Disturbed sleep pattern
• Impaired physical mobility
• Chronic pain

With chronic pain you may want to consider:

Actual or Potential Problems

• Impaired functionality
• Permanent changes in physical ability

Related to

• compression and/or irritation of sciatic nerve

Plan & Outcome

• enact non-pharmaceutical methods for treating pain
• advise patient to consult with provider for beginning low doses of opioids 
• relief from pain 
• good management of pain symptoms

Nursing Intervention

• Check out my last blog entry for a detailed list of nursing interventions for dealing with pain.

References

 Lewis, S., Dirksen, S., Heitkemper, M., & Bucher, L. (2014). Musculoskeletal Problems. In Medical-Surgical Nursing (9th ed., Vol. 2, p. 1548). Elsevier.