This chapter addresses the key principles of sport, exercise, and performance psychology. It reflects the broadening of sport psychology studies to encompass more widespread human performance research. The topic of decision making has been covered in psychology, economics, and motor learning but addressed very sparsely in sport, exercise, and performance psychology. Rational decision making requires defining the problem, identifying criteria, weighing those criteria, generating alternative solutions, and ultimately computing the optimal decision. The chapter introduces the literature on decision making and provides examples of factors that influence the choices people make. The decision to act, move, or what move to make is decided in the response selection stage, and the final stage is when one’s brain and muscles are organized to make the actual move. The key to improve the decision-making over time is to increase personal awareness of own limitations and keep learning and collecting information from reliable sources.

The author worked in a public health research lab, after graduation from college. She liked the flexibility of nursing and the promise to always have a job. She was fascinated by the intricacy of the mind-body intersection and how horribly wrong things could get with seemingly small perturbations. She felt that nursing school discouraged any consideration of a career in psychiatric nursing, as a mentor shared a comment by one of her advisors years ago that “only the bad nurses go into psychiatry”. A common occurrence was the admission of patients with psychiatric needs in addition to medical comorbidities. She cared for patients who had anxiety as a consequence of hospitalization, depression due to chronic illness, persons suffering from acute delirium, as well as someone with dementia secondary to HIV. Later she accepted a job at a local community health center that serves a predominance of Latino immigrants.

This chapter explores traumatic grief and loss and discusses various treatments for it. It focuses on mindfulness-based interventions for specific use in traumatic grief with bereaved parents. Traumatic grief appears relatively responsive to the psychosocial approach, particularly when it includes exposure elements, such as retelling the story of the loss, reutilization, and building tolerance to the emotions associated with loss. More recently, Thieleman, Cacciatore, and Hill have presented evidence for a mindfulness-based, psychosocial approach for specific use in traumatic grief with bereaved parents. Western culture’s interest in mindfulness has grown exponentially, and practices have been integrated into a variety of general, psychotherapeutic treatment approaches including acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), mindful- ness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Of all mindfulness practices, one of the most cost-effective strategies to help providers working with bereaved parents is meditation.

This chapter explains the seminal Institute of Medicine (IOM) report: The Future of Nursing (FoN): Leading Change, Advancing Health and the background organizations that wrote it. It demonstrates some key recommendations of FoN: Leading Change, Advancing Health report and its “fit” with Indian Country. The chapter differentiates between challenges in obtaining nursing education in Indian Country and those in dominant culture settings. The IOM’s effort with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) on the FoN has been noticed by many, yet direct care nurses are largely unaware of the report. The chapter outlines the FoN recommendations into two groups: gaining education, practicing to its fullest scope, and pushing for more, including lifelong learning; and shaping policy, being at the table as full partners in health care redesign, and leading change. For American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) nurses graduating from tribal colleges and universities (TCU), the majority will have an associate’s degree.

Multiple physical changes can impair the mental health of the aging individual. These changes include: acid-based imbalances, dehydration, electrolyte changes, hypothermia or hyperthermia, and hypothyroidism. This chapter reviews the most common mental health disorders affecting the elderly population and trends affecting care delivery. Moreover, chronic, unresolved pain has been associated with an increased risk of a mental health disorder such as depression, suicide, or anxiety. The aging individual may exhibit signs and symptoms of insomnia such as sleeping for short periods during the night, sleeping during times of normal social activities, arising early in the morning while others sleep, and experiencing daytime sleepiness. The chapter concludes by applying the nursing process from an interpersonal perspective to the care of an elderly patient with a mental health disorder.

Musculoskeletal disorders are some of the most common causes of illness and hospitalization in children due to their active nature. This chapter reviews common pediatric musculoskeletal disorders, etiology of pediatric musculoskeletal disorders, and pediatric-specific care of musculoskeletal disorders. The musculoskeletal system supports the body structure and provides for client movement. Skeletal growth is most rapid during infancy and adolescence. Injury to the epiphysis can affect bone growth. The most common pediatric musculoskeletal disorders involve pediatric trauma. Torticollis is a symptom that causes a child’s chin to be rotated to one side and the head to the other side. The two most common disorders that can cause torticollis include: Congenital muscular torticollis, and Acquired torticollis. Osteomyelitis is an infection of the bone that occurs most often in infancy or between the ages of 5 and 14 years.