Gastrointestinal Alterations Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example

Gastrointestinal Alterations Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example

Gastrointestinal alterations disrupt the gastrointestinal tract and other functions. Alterations can include structural and neural abnormalities, slowing, obstructing, or accelerating intestinal content movement at different levels of the gastrointestinal tract. Other inflammatory and ulcerative conditions impact the gastrointestinal wall, disrupting motility, secretion, and absorption. Alterations can also include liver, pancreas, or gallbladder inflammation or obstruction, altering the metabolism and leading to local or systematic symptoms. Alterations can result from various impairments. This paper discusses diverticulitis and peritonitis.(Gastrointestinal Alterations Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

Diverticulitis

Individuals with diverticulosis develop multiple sac-like protrusions or diverticula along the gastrointestinal tract. Diverticula can develop at the small or large intestinal walls’ weak points, although many developers in the large intestine (Nallapeta et al., 2017). People with diverticulitis are primarily asymptomatic. The disease develops when the patient experiences diverticular bleeding, acute or chronic inflammation, fistula formation, inflammation in the colon’s mucosal segment between the diverticula, and bowel obstruction. Peristalsis abnormalities like intestinal spasms, high segmental intraluminal pressures, and intestinal dyskinesia are associated with diverticulosis. However, the exact cause is unestablished, although certain environmental and lifestyle risk factors, such as eating a diet low on fibre and much red meat, are associated with the disease (Nallapeta et al., 2017). Often a diet high in fiber can help reduce the overall inflammation in patients with severe diverticular disease, although it does not help with uncomplicated diverticular disease symptoms. Obesity patients or those with a larger waist circumference are highly likely to bleed due to diverticulitis.(Gastrointestinal Alterations Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

Colonic diverticula can cause abnormal colonic motility, leading to exaggerated segmental muscle constrictions, increased intraluminal pressures, and colonic lumen separation into chambers. Individuals with connective tissue disorders like Marfan syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and autosomal dominant polycystic kidney illness can develop colonic diverticula because they involve structural changes (Nallapeta et al., 2017). Patients with diverticulitis experience unprecedented abdominal pain, cramping, bowel habits alterations, and bloody stool. However, bleeding is often painless. Lower abdominal pain is associated with acute diverticulitis, leading to abdominal tenderness, palpation, and increased white blood cell count.   (Gastrointestinal Alterations Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example) 

Peritonitis

Peritonitis is the inflammation of the peritoneal cavity. It can be categorized based on the underlying causal factor, primary or secondary, extent of occurrence, localized or generalized, or infectious agents’ presence, septic or nonseptic. Primary peritonitis is a spontaneous inflammatory condition occurring without intraabdominal pathology or penetrating peritoneal injury (Volk, 2018). Secondary peritonitis develops due to a hole or rupture in an internal organ in the abdomen from a preexisting aseptic or septic pathologic intraabdominal condition. Clinical signs and severity vary because of the many conditions.(Gastrointestinal Alterations Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

Common causes include medical procedures such as peritoneal dialysis that can lead to infections, digestive surgery, using feeding tubes, complications of an exam, and endoscopy. Other causes include a ruptured appendix, a hole in the colon, stomach ulcer, pancreatitis, diverticulitis, and trauma or injury, allowing bacteria or chemicals from other body ports to enter the peritoneum (Volk, 2018). Patients with peritonitis present with belly pain or tenderness, fever, bloating or feeling full, upset stomach and vomiting, thirst, tiredness, confusion, thirst, diarrhea, loss of appetite, and difficulty passing stool. Some patients with peritoneal dialysis can observe a cloudy dialysis fluid, clumps, strands, or white flecks, often referred to as fibrin, in the dialysis fluid.  (Gastrointestinal Alterations Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)

Conclusion

Gastrointestinal alterations are multiple, slowing, obstructing, or accelerating the intestinal content movement at various levels of the gastrointestinal tract. Severe gastrointestinal alterations lead to a poorer quality of life. Among them are diverticulitis and peritonitis. People with diverticulitis develop multiple sac-like protrusions of diverticula along the gastrointestinal tract. Individuals with peritonitis experience inflammation of the peritoneal cavity.(Gastrointestinal Alterations Comprehensive Nursing Essay Example)