User:Fallingskies17/sandbox

Being bold is important on Wikipedia.

Article Evaluation:
 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
 * It's all about cancer pain and management
 * Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * The article is pretty neutral; it's just providing information about cancer pain and ways to manage it.
 * Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?
 * The links work and the information is found in the sources
 * Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference?
 * The ones I checked were
 * Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
 * All of the sources are related to cancer, pain, and treatments. They seem to be neutral.
 * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
 * There are some recent articles cited, but there are also several old ones (1968, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1989) that cause me to question if the information is still accurate
 * Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations,       if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * There are suggestions for information to include, people pointed out information that needed reliable citations, and someone suggested the inclusion of images and infoboxes
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * It is under the WikiProject Medicine, and also
 * Inaccurate information:
 * In the introduction, an author says that pain management can shorten the patients' life

"Choose Possible Topics" Assignment

Cancer pain I will use my textbooks and library resources to compile more information about the physiology of pain, mechanisms of treatments, and more information about management. I will also try to find some relevant images.
 * In this article I can add more information about pain assessment and more about the causes of pain; I can talk about the physiology of pain; perhaps I could talk about the mechanisms with which treatments cause pain; there can be more added to the management. The article also needs more relevant images.

My additions to Cancer Pain
 * Nociceptors = nerve fibers that detect stimuli that could cause damage to the body i.e. extreme heat, pressure, or caustic chemicals
 * Four processes of pain:
 * Transduction – energy from the pain causing stimuli is converted into electrical energy to travel through the nervous system to the brain
 * Transmission – nerve impulses travel along nerve fibers into the spinal cord, up the spinal cord and into the thalamus – the thalamus is like the control panel and sends the information to other centers of the brain
 * Perception – this is the point in the pain pathway that the person becomes aware of pain; based on the information in the nerve impulses, the brain identifies the location and intensity; perception gives meaning to the pain and allows us to form a reaction
 * Modulation – the brain reacts: muscles contract to withdraw from the source of pain, and the brain releases inhibitory chemicals to decrease sensation to the pain by decreasing the transmission


 * Pain also causes the nervous system to go into fight or flight mode – increased heartrate and blood pressure and respirations, muscle tension, dilated pupils; if pain is prolonged the body compensates and heartrate and blood pressure lowers, can also have nausea and vomiting
 * Chronic pain
 * Affects eating, sleeping, concentration, emotions, and quality of life
 * Behavioral responses include gritting teeth, guarding the painful area, grimacing

Info from: Fundamentals of Nursing
 * Keep in mind that pain can be present even if the person doesn’t appear to be in pain.

Author: Patricia A. Potter, RN, MSN, PhD, FAAN, Anne Griffin Perry, RN, EdD, FAAN, Patricia Stockert, RN, BS

ISBN: 9780323327404

p. 1015-1017

Drafted as a paragraph:

Nociceptors are nerve fibers that detect stimuli that could potentially cause damage to the body such as extreme heat, pressure, or contact with caustic chemicals. When the nociceptors detect a stimulus, the pain pathway is initiated. The pain pathway is composed of four parts: transduction, transmission, perception, and modulation. Transduction is when the thermal, mechanical, or chemical energy from the pain-causing stimuli is converted into electrical energy so it can be transmitted through the nervous system. Transmission occurs when the energy has been converted and the nerve impulses travel along the nerve fibers into the spinal cord and to the brain. The target structure is the thalamus, which acts as a control panel and forwards the information to the appropriate section(s) of the brain. When the information reaches the brain perception occurs. This is the point in the pain pathway that the person becomes aware of pain. Based on the information in the nerve impulses, the brain is able to identify the location and intensity of the pain and what kind of reaction it warrants. When the brain reacts this is known as modulation. The muscles contract to withdraw from the source of pain and the brain releases inhibitory chemicals to decrease the transmission and provide relief.

Wikipedia Reflective Essay

Through this Wikipedia assignment I have learned a lot about Wikipedia that I never knew. In high school we were always told that Wikipedia wasn’t a reliable source because anybody can change it. After going through the tutorials I know how to look at a Wikipedia article and determine if it is reliable or not.

I chose to critique the Cancer Pain article because that is a topic I am really interested in. My adult clinical this semester was on one of the cancer units at Butterworth hospital and I also knew several people who lost their battles with cancer. Before I critiqued the article I read through it completely and made notes on paper what the author included. Then I went over my list to see what seemed to be missing. I also went through the suggested questions and found them to be valuable in helping me to know what to look for because reviewing a Wikipedia article is very different than reviewing a research article. After going through all of this, I added a couple of sentences to the pain section about how pain is reported. Later we were assigned to either create our own article or contribute to an existing article. Again, I wanted to add to the Cancer Pain article because I felt that it was still lacking. It would have been redundant to create another article on the topic so I chose to add to the existing one. I added a section on the pathophysiology of pain because I noticed that the author didn’t say anything about how pain is registered and perceived.

My first edit included an addition to the pain section of the article. The author had mentioned verbal reports of pain using the 0-10 scale, but they hadn’t discussed patients who can’t give verbal report. Since not all patients are able to verbalize their pain it is important to also pay attention to behavioral indicators, as I said in the article. I cited it to our Fundamentals of Nursing textbook by Potter and Perry. My second and more major edit involved adding an entire section to the article. The author did a good job explaining how cancer caused pain, but they didn’t discuss how the body tells the brain about painful stimuli. In the section I added I explained what nociceptors were and also discussed the four steps of the pain pathway – transduction, transmission, perception, and modulation – and what happens during each step. These were valuable contributions because the information is found in a reliable source and it wasn’t found anywhere else in the article. Through these additions I was able to provide the Wikipedia community with more reliable information. My additions didn’t change it so much so that it was drastically different from previous versions, I simply added some information.

Our class was supposed to do peer reviews, but so far I haven’t gotten any reviews on my article or sandbox. When I reviewed my classmates I read through their articles and made notes to myself. Then I left comments on the talk pages with suggestions. When I reviewed the Compassion Fatigue article I noticed that the section about healthcare professionals was much lengthier than the one about lawyers. I suggested they elaborate more on how lawyers experience compassion fatigue, and give more examples of other occupations such as social work, or law enforcement officers. When I reviewed the Diabetic Neuropathy article I noticed several things that could be improved. There was a link to neuronal ischemia that no longer worked because the page no longer existed. They also had an incorrect understanding of orthostatic hypotension and stated that it meant “fainting when you stand up.” I corrected that on the article and also mentioned it on the talk page. I also suggested expansion in three sections that only contained a few sentences – advanced glycated end products, polyol pathway, and prevention. I haven’t received any feedback from other Wikipedia editors. However, my page was reviewed and the reviewer didn’t leave any comments so I’m assuming everything was in order.

Over the course of this semester I learned how easy it is to make my mark on the world through Wikipedia. I also learned that it is an extreme responsibility though because everyone in the world who has access to internet has access to Wikipedia. Many people rely on it for factual information so it’s extremely important to ensure anything we put on there is from a reliable source and that we cite those sources. This assignment has been unlike anything else I’ve done for any class. At first I was confused about the utility of it but now I can see that I’ve learned a lot. Since so many people use Wikipedia it is a great way to spread knowledge about topics that are relevant to us such as cancer pain, or diabetic neuropathy, or compassion fatigue. It is important to be able to raise awareness about such topics because medical topics are often misunderstood by those who don’t work in the medical field, and even still by some who do. It’s important to clarify any confusion and counter any misunderstandings so that individuals who rely on Wikipedia are getting information they can trust.