Reference no: EM133248825
Ms. Lara Crouch is an elderly lady, currently 78 years old (MRN 567342). She had facial drooping, aphasia, and hemiparesis on her right side when paramedics brought her in. Congestive cardiac failure and hypertension have both plagued her in the past. For the past 40 years, she has smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. The following are her findings: Temperature 36.8, respiratory rate 24 (per minute), heart rate 160 bpm (irregular), blood pressure 146/100 mmHg, and SpO2 94% on room air. A CT scan showed higher density in the left middle and cerebral arteries, which may be an early symptom of cerebral oedema, indicating a possible left cerebrovascular accident.
Task Details
Question 1. Think about the assessment you would conduct, how is this going to impact on the care you need to provide to Lara and how are you going to give this care.
Teacher notes: In order to answer this question, you firstly need to identify what assessments (this is written in the plural - therefore more than one) are needed. Once you have identified the assessments you need to be able to plan your care for this patient.
So, for instance if a patient you were caring for called you saying they could not breath, an appropriate assessment would be a respiratory assessment. While conducting the assessment you notice they have a high RR and low SpO2 and they are speaking in short sentences, when you listen to their chest you hear wheeze over all lung fields. The interpretation and analysis of this assessment is going to inform your practice. In other words what are you going to do for the patient, what is your patient management going to look like.
For Lara your assessment is going to mainly focus on the objective data due to her speech difficulty. So, there will not be a great deal of subjective input into your assessment.
When looking at the case look at her vital signs and her history and presentation, this will lead to the type of assessment you also need to carry out, looking further afield then just her stroke.