Essay Example on Assessing Abdomen: Abnormal Findings & Diagnostic Tests

Assessing the abdomen involves physical examination where a nurse or a physician cross-examines the gut of the patient due to the signs of the disease. This paper will entirely focus on a patient with abnormal findings where the nurse or physician will consider what history to be collected from the patient, physical exams that should be conducted and the diagnostic tests that need to be undertaken on the patient.

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The nurse will carry on an interview with the patient to determine the history which will help in prescription and determination of the disease and the potential causes (Dains, Baumann, & Scheibel, 2016). The patient will be asked questions on matters such as heavy alcohol drinking, how sexually active she is, and the family planning history.

Physical examinations such as inspection, auscultation, palpation, and percussion in that order Inspection will be conducted by positioning the patient's supine on an examination table where the knees and head are supported with pillows to relax the abdominal wall (Ball et al., 2015). The physician should use hearing, vision, and smell to assess normal conditions and deviations. Through inspection, the physician aim is to evaluate for movements, texture, color, size, odors, symmetry, and sounds in the abdomen system. Auscultation will be used on the patient to determine the sounds. Typically, gut sounds are gurgling are heard by the use of stethoscope (O'Laughlen, 2009). If the sounds decrease, that means a decrease in gut activity. These results can be due to abnormal surgery, injury or infection while zero noises may alarm cases of Intestinal ischemia, disease, or intestinal obstruction. Palpation will require the physician to use different parts of the hand with varying pressure to touch the patient (O'Laughlen, 2009). It will focus on determining any abdominal tenderness or masses in the abdomen for the crepitus of the abdominal wall. While palpating, most indicators of tenderness are the patient's facial expression.

Diagnostic tests to be conducted on the patients are a blood test, urine test, saliva test, and even a CT scan. A complete blood count (CBC) is a one blood test that helps in concluding if there is an infection (Whitlock, 2019). Notably, when blood cells increase, it shows the presence of an infection. Urinalyses will be performed on the urine to determine if contamination is present in the urinary tract.

The subjective portion puts into consideration the history, diagnostics test, and physical examination in, which improves the accuracy and thus right prescription to the patient. Although, this part should include auscultation and also the condition of the lesions on the skin. The current diagnosis is okay since it incorporates the three stages that should be undertaken during the assessment. The possible conditions to be diagnosed are urinary tract infection(UTI), liver cirrhosis, and colon cancer.

Conclusion

In cases of abdominal pains, signs, and symptoms are reported, assessment is essential. From determining the history of the patient, physical examination, and diagnostic tests should always be carried out on the patient to treat the right disease and avoid medical errors.

References

Ball, J. W., Dains, J. E., Flynn, J. A., Solomon, B. S., & Stewart, R. W. (2015). Seidel's Guide to Physical Examination (8th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.

Dains, J. E., Baumann, L. C., & Scheibel, P. (2016). Advanced Health Assessment, Clinical Diagnosis in Prime Care (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.

O'Laughlen, M. C. (2009). Making Sense of Abdominal Assessment. Nursing Made Incredibly Easy, 7(5), 15-19.

Whitlock, J. (2019). Common Tests Used to Diagnose Abdominal pain. Very Well, Health. Retrieved from https://www.verywellhealth.com/common-tests-used-to-diagnosed-abdominal-pain-4126396