Week 2: Health Assessment/General Survey/ADL's/Pain Flashcards
(91 cards)
Definition: Activities of Daily Living
Basic tasks like eating, dressing, and moving around.
Definition: Acute Pain
Short-term pain and self-limiting, follows a predictable trajectory, and dissipates after an injury heals (after surgery, trauma, and kidney stones); acts as a self-protective purpose to warn of actual or potential tissue damage.
Definition: Chronic Pain
Persistent or recurring pain lasting longer than 3 months; can be categorized as malignant (cancer-related pain), nonmalignant (musculoskeletal conditions), or neuropathic (multiple sclerosis, poststroke syndromes, trigeminal neuralgia).
Definition: Continuous Pain
A form of chronic pain that lasts for weeks, months, or years; often impacting the muscles, bones, joints, and organs (arthritis).
Definition: Functional Health Assessment
Evaluates a person’s ability to perform daily tasks and participate in their environment; it can also help identify any limitations or areas for improvement.
Definition: General Survey
An assessment of a patient’s health that includes their appearance, mental status, mobility, and behavior.
Definition: Health History
The patient’s past health information including medical history, family health history, and other relevant details; used by healthcare providers to diagnose and treat patients.
Definition: Intermittent Pain
A form of pain that comes and goes rather than being constant; can occur for a number of reasons such as nerve damage, poor blood flow, ovarian cysts, etc.
Definition: Neuropathic Pain
A lesion or disease in the peripheral or central nervous systems causing abnormal processing of the stimuli (may be tingling, burning, ‘shooting’, numbness); (ex. MS, diabetic neuropathy, phantom limb syndrome, herpes, shingles).
Definition: Nociceptive Pain
Pain is experienced when there is tissue injury (fracture, cut to the skin) or inflammation (arthritis, colitis), and the pain sensing nerves (nociceptors) sense this event; may be described as aching, throbbing, sharp, dull, etc.; may be somatic or visceral.
Definition: Objective Data
Information that a nurse or other healthcare professional gathers about a patient through observation, measurement, or testing (temperature, BP, RR, HR, visible signs of an illness/disease, visible signs of discomfort/pain).
Definition: Pain Rating Scale
A tool that helps people measure their pain level, track any changes to pain levels, and aid in the development of a treatment plan; can be numerical 0-10 (Numeric Rating Scale NRS), by facial expression (Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), or by descriptor scale (no pain, mild pain, moderate pain, sever pain, very severe pain).
Definition: Referred Pain
Originates in one location but is experienced at another location; the same spinal nerve innervates both locations and it is difficult for the brain to differentiate the point of origin (EX. heart attack/MI).
Definition: Somatic Pain
Superficial (skin, subcutaneous tissue) or deep (bones, muscles, tendons, joints); typically localized and often described as aching or throbbing.
Definition: Subjective Data
Information provided by a patient to a nurse from the patient’s viewpoint or the viewpoint of a second party, such as a child’s parent. “I have a really sore head, I feel really tired”.
Definition: Visceral Pain
Larger interior organs such as intestines, gallbladder, pancreas (kidney stones, pancreatitis, appendicitis, ovarian cysts); pain may be constant or intermittent; pain may be caused by direct injury to the organ, or because the organ is stretched (tumors, cysts, stones, inflammation, distension).
What is a Health Assessment?
A collection of information about a person’s health
What is the purpose of a Health Assessment?
To gather a database about the patient so that we can make a judgement or a diagnosis about the person
What is Subjective information?
Subjective data is what the patient or their loved ones may say.
It is what the patient is feeling such as emotions, pain, throbbing, and other sensations.
What is Objective information?
Objective information is results from physical exams, lab and diagnostic results.
It is data that can be measured such as temperature, BP, RR, Pulse, SpO2 that can be reproduced by someone else.
What needs to be communicated to a patent at the beginning of a health assessment?
- Privacy
- Confidentiality
- Time
- Purpose
What sort of information is important for a Health History?
- Biographical data
- Reason for seeking care
- Current health or history of current illness
- Past health history
- Family health history
- Review of systems
- Functional assessment (including activities of daily living [ADLs])
What is Biographical Data?
Name
Address
Age
Gender/Pronouns
Culture
Religion/Spirituality
Language
Occupation
Martial status
Why is Culture important when taking Biographical Data?
It can help understand their:
Health beliefs
- Use of alternative therapies
- Nutritional habits
- Family and community relationships
- Level of comfort with physical closeness and examination
- Expectations of health and HC workers
- Gender preference for HC workers