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Health Assessment Information
For the 49 -year -old patient with advanced cancer admitted with a cardiac arrest; an adequate health assessment would be required to make an adequate diagnosis. A comprehensive health assessment would provide details related to the patient’s physical status through measurement of vital signs, observation, and the patient’s self-reported symptoms. The comprehensive health assessment of the 49- year- the old patient would entail a medical history of the patient, a general survey, and a complete physical examination (Ingram, 2017). The general survey would be the first stage in the patient examination. This would include recording the patient’s age, height, weight, posture, build, gait, and hygiene. The general survey of the patient would provide baseline data and help build rapport with patients to establish a trusting relationship with the patient and ease anxiety. The general survey would then be followed by comprehensive health assessments, which would utilize different techniques, including inspection, auscultation, palpation, and percussion. Inspection is one of the most employed methods of assessment. Through inspections, different indications of health problems would be identified on the 49-year-old patient. An inspection would include inspecting skin color and lesions, rashes, as well as abnormal odors and sounds (Zambas, Smythe, & Koziol-Mclain, 2016). Another technique that would be utilized in health assessment is auscultations. This would include listening to the abdomen’s sounds by placing the bell of a stethoscope or diaphragm on the bare skin of patients. Before a comprehensive health assessment is adopted, the patient’s health history would be taken. This would include the patient’s medical compliance, past health records, presents the state of health, family history, psychosocial status, and family history. The health history would provide in-depth information on the symptoms of the 49 years old patient. Medical experiences, childhood illnesses, and the risk of developing certain diseases (Ingram, 2017). The health history collection would then be followed by a detailed physical examination of the patients, which would include a review of the patient’s body systems. A head-to-toe examination of the patients would include assessment of the patient, neurological functions, skin, eyes, nose, and throat. The respiratory functions of the patients would also be reviewed, and their cardiac, pulmonary system. This would be the central determinant of a cardiac arrest diagnosis. The patient’s muscle joints, abdomen reproductive systems, shoulders, limbs, ankles, hips, and feet would also be examined, with the patient’s reproductive system and nutrition being considered. The patient’s respiratory function results and cardiac and pulmonary system results would help determine the diagnosis of a cardiac arrest (Zambas et al., 2016).
Response to the Scenario as an APRN
As an advanced practice nurse, there are several evidence based emergency practices that I would need to perform to help the 49-year-old with a cardiac arrest. This would include rapid resuscitation to guarantee the survival of the patient as an advanced practice nurse the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED) would therefore be necessary to help detect life-threatening arrhythmias in the patient’s chest and deliver a shock to restore a normal heart rhythm if such incidents were detected (Zègre-Hemsey, 2020). High-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitations (CPR) would also be adopted to help save the life of the 49-year-old patient. The use of AED on the patient would be followed by CPR as a way of treating cardiac arrest on the patients. The ethical considerations that would be utilized to make the decisions to administer AED and CPR to the 49-year-old patient suspected to have a cardiac arrest would be beneficence and non-maleficence. The adopted procedures would avoid the harm of death occurring on the patients while they would actively be positive actions meant to benefit the patients and save their life.
References
Ingram, S. (2017). Taking a comprehensive health Assessment: learning through practice and
reflection. British Journal of Nursing, 26(18), 1033–1037. doi:10.12968/bjon.2017.26.18.1033.
Zambas, S. I., Smythe, E. A., & Koziol-Mclain, J. (2016). The consequences of using advanced
physical assessment skills in medical and surgical nursing: A hermeneutic pragmatic study. International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being, 11, 32090. https://doi.org/10.3402/
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