Physical Examination Flashcards
What are the 3 components in a health assessment?
Health History
Physical Assessment
Family information
What are the components of a physical assessment?
General examination
1. Gender and race
2. Age (extremes of age)
3. Signs of distress (pain/difficulty breathing
4. Body type (thin/fat)
5. Posture (upright, knee flexed, tripoding)
6. Gait (coordination, arms swinging freely with head and face leading the body when walking
7. Body movement (purposefully, any immobile parts)
8. Hygiene and grooming (Maintained personal hygiene or not; cosmetic or not)
What is inspection of the patient?
Visual assessment of the patient and surroundings
Findings that may be significant:
Patient hygiene
Clothing
Eye gaze
Body language
Body position
Skin color
Odor
What should you look at when observing the body part?
Pay attention, watching all movement & looking carefully at any body part.
It helps to know physical characteristics.
Quality of inspection depend on the
willingness to spend time during a job.
What should you look for in the patients bed?
Make a visual inspection for:
Cleanliness
Prescription medicines
Illegal drug
Weapons
Signs of alcohol use
What are some principes of inspection assessment?
Make sure adequate lighting is available.
Position and expose body parts so that all surface can be viewed.
Inspect each area of size, shape, color, symmetry, position and abnormalities.
If possible, compare each area inspected with the same area on the opposite side of the body.
Use additional light to inspect body cavities.
Do not hurry inspection.
Pay attention to detail.
What is palpation?
A technique in which the hands and fingers are used to gather information by touch.
Palmar surface of fingers and finger pads are used to palpate for:
Texture
Masses
Fluid
Assess skin temperature
Patient should be relax and positioned comfortably because muscle tension during palpation impair its effectiveness.
What are some considerations you shoul take into account when palpating a patient?
You should warm your hands prior to placing them on the patient.
Encourage the patient to continue to breathe normally throughout the palpation.
If pain is experienced during the palpation, discontinue the palpation immediately.
Inform the patient where, when, and how the touch will occur, especially when the patient cannot see what you are doing.
What are the 3 types of palpation?
Light
Deep
Bimanual
What is light palpation?
Apply tactile pressure slowly, gently and deliberately.
The hand is placed on the part to be examined and depressed about 1-2cm.
What is deep palpation?
It is done after light palpation.
It is used to detect abdominal masses.
Technique is similar to light palpation except that the finger are held at a greater angle to the body surface and the skin is depressed about 4-5 cm.
What is bimanual palpation?
It involve using both hand to trap a structure between them.
This technique can be used to evaluate spleen, kidney, breast, uterus and ovary.
Sensing hand – Relax & place lightly over the skin.
Active hand – Apply pressure to the sensing hand.
What is percussion
Percussion involve tapping the body with the fingertips to evaluate the size, border and consistency of body organs and to discover fluid in body cavity
Used to evaluate for presence of air or fluid in body tissues
– Sound waves heard as percussion tones (resonance)
What are the 3 methods of percussion?
Mediate or indirect
Immediate
Fist
