Chapter 8 Flashcards
Patient Assessment
The secondary muscles of respiration. They include the necks muscles (sternocleidomastoids), the chest pectoralis major muscles, and the abdominal muscles.
Accessory muscles
To listen to sounds within an organ with a stethoscope.
Auscultate
A method of assessing the level of consciousness by determining whether the patient is awake and alert, responsive to verbal stimuli or pain, or unresponsive; used principally early in the assessment process.
AVPU scale
The pressure of circulating blood against the walls of the arteries.
Blood pressure
A slow heart rate, less than 60 beats/min.
Bradycardia
An indication of air movement in the lungs, usually assessed with a stethoscope.
Breath sounds
A test that evaluates distal circulatory system function by squeezing (blanching) blood from an area such as a nail bed and watching the speed of its return after releasing the pressure.
Capillary refil
A noninvasive method that can quickly and efficiently provide information on a patient’s ventilators status, circulation, and metabolism.
Capnography
The use of a capnometer, a device that measures the amount of expired carbon dioxide
Capnometry
Carbon dioxide is a component of air and typically makes up 0.3% of air at sea level. It is also a waste product exhaled during expiration by the respiratory system.
Carbon dioxide
The reason a patient called for help; also, the patient’s response to questions such as “What’s wrong?” Or “What happened?”
Chief complaint
To form a clot to plug an opening in an injured blood vessel and stop bleeding.
Coagulate
Capnometer or end-tidal carbon dioxide detectors are devices that use a chemical reaction to detect the amount of carbon dioxide present in expired gases by changing colors (qualitative measurement rather than quantitative).
Colorimetric devices
The delicate membrane that lines the eyelids and covers the exposed surface of the eye.
Conjunctiva
A grating or grinding sensation caused by fractured bone ends or joints rubbing together; also air bubbles under the skin that produce a crackling sound or crinkly feeling.
Crepitus
I bluish gray skin color that is caused by a reduced level of oxygen in the blood.
Cyanosis
A mnemonic for assessment in which each area of the body is evaluated for Deformities, Contusions, Abrasions, Punctures/Penetrations, Burns, Tenderness, Lacerations, and Swelling.
DCAP-BTLS
Characterized by profuse sweating.
Diaphoretic
The pressure that remains in the arteries during the relaxing phase of the heart’s cycle (diastole) when the left ventrical is at rest.
Diastolic pressure
The amount of carbon dioxide present in exhaled breath.
End–tidal CO2
A type of physical assessment that is typically performed on patients who have sustained nonsignificant mechanisms of injury or on responsive medical patients. This type of examination is based on the chief complaint and focuses on one body system or part.
Focused assessment
Damage to tissue as a result of exposure to cold; frozen or partially frozen body parts are frostbitten.
Frostbite
A systematic head-to-toe examination that is performed during the secondary assessment on a patient who has sustained a significant mechanism of injury, is unconscious, or is in critical condition.
Full-body scan
The overall initial impression that determines the priority for patient care; based on the patient’s surroundings, the mechanism of injury, signs and symptoms, and the chief complaint.
General impression
The time from injury to definitive care, during which treatment of shock and traumatic injuries should occur because survival potential is best.
Golden period
Involuntary muscle contractions (spasms) of the abdominal wall in an effort to protect an inflamed abdomen; a sign of peritonitis.
Guarding
I step within the patient assessment process that provides detail about the patient’s chief complaint and an account of the patient’s signs and symptoms.
History taking
Blood pressure that is higher than the normal range.
Hypertension