TODAY’S TEST QUESTION:

CORRECT ANSWER:

C) Auscultate the patient’s lungs

• The first intervention should always be to assess the patient first.

• The other answers are definitely reasonable but the key here is to think of what you would do first. Auscultating the lungs helps to give information to the provider on call.

• The provider may decide to do several interventions at once but it is crucial to have this information for the provider.

• Another priority intervention is to get vitals signs-specifically pulse oxygen.

• Coughing after eating could be a sign that an individual is aspirating, especially if hx stroke, parkinsons, and or other neurological disorders. It is also important to consider other factors that can play into coughing after eating.

  • These include GERD, food allergies, asthma, anaphylaxis, and poorly

    fitting dentures, dental issues.

• “Aspiration of food or fluid can also occur possibly brought about by a structural problem, interruption or dysfunction of neural pathways, decreased strength or excursion of muscles involved in mastication, facial paralysis, or perceptual impairment. The swallowing muscles can become weak with age or inactivity. It is a common complaint among older adults, in those individuals who have had a stroke, suffered head trauma, have head or neck cancer, or experience progressive neurological diseases as of multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. Dysphagia can befall at any age, but it’s more prevalent in older adults.”-nurselabs.com