What is a proliferation and how is releated in nursing?

Answer 1

Proliferation simply means the multiplying of cells. It relates to nursing in a variety of ways. If a patient has an injury their body will usually start repairing the site within 3 minutes, sending WBCs to the site and modifying the surface blood supply. this phase is known as the lag phase. After the lag phase the body goes into the inflammatory/ proliferative stage in which the site swells up and collagen is quickly formed into fibrin in order to bind the site shut. This stage gets the term proliferative because the body increases the number of WBCs systemically in order to fight off any pathogens that may be associated with the wound. Likewise, when a patient is ill (for example, the flu) the body immune systems increases the number of WBCs (leukopoeisis is a type of proliferation). The list of ways that the human body undergoes proliferation is continuous beyond this and usually on a case-by-case basis. Of course proliferation in the health field is not always a good thing. As mentioned earlier the term simply refers to cells multiplying, and these cells could be a pathogen. Many viruses, for example, will enter a cell, proliferate until there are too many virus strands for the cell wall to contain, and the cell bursts, releasing more viruses into the body to infect new cells. The spread of a bacteria or fungus is not the cell growing, but rather more cells becoming present because the cells are proliferating.