Health Assessment

Important components of assessing a patient's nails and reviews nail clubbing and capillary refill

Primary skin lesions (e.g., macule, patch, papule, plaque, wheal, vesicle, pustule, bulla, nodule, tumor) and secondary skin lesions (e.g., crust, scale, fissure, ero sion, ulcer, keloid, atrophy)

How to assess alterations in your patient's skin color (e.g., pallor, cyanosis, erythema, jaundice) and how to assess edema (e.g., pitting edema and non-pitting edema)

The overall components of a skin assessment and covers information about assessing skin turgor.

The different components of a pain assessment, and covers several different pain scales (e.g., CRIES, FLACC, FACES, Oucher, numeric)

When and how to assess orthostatic vital signs, orthostatic hypotension criteria, and important patient teaching

The assessment technique when obtaining a patient's blood pressure, along with the expected blood pressure ranges by age, and levels of hypertension for adults

How to assess your patient's oxygen saturation, the expected oxygen saturation range, and nursing considerations when obtaining this vital sign.

The assessment components and technique of obtaining your patient's respirations, along with expected findings (e.g., expected respiratory rate ranges, depth, rhythm, and effort), and unexpected findings (e.g., tachypnea, bradypnea, hyperventilation, hypoventilation, irregular respirations, apnea, and dyspnea).

What and how to assess when obtaining a patient's pulse, along with the expected findings (e.g., expected ranges, regularity, strength, and equality) and unexpected findings (e.g., bradycardia, irregular pulses, pulsus alternans, and a pulse deficit).

How to assess temperature (e.g., oral, temporal, tympanic, axillary, and rectal), the expected temperature ranges for adults, children, and infants, and nursing considerations when taking a patient's temperature.

How to assess a patient's level of consciousness and orientation, and how to score a patient using the Glasgow coma scale.

The general overview of physical assessments, how to begin an assessment, and what is covered by a general survey.

The four main types of physical assessment components (i.e., inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation) and discusses the flow of a general physical assessment and abdominal assessment.