Physical Assessment of Patients with Complex Problems

Course Description

Do you find complex client problems challenging your assessment skills? Do you need a greater understanding of how to assess for certain client conditions? This course will explore ways to fine tune your physical assessment skills and improve you critical thinking ability to sort through complex client conditions. It focuses on assessment aspects of specific diseases to give you the critical skills for rapid assessment of client conditions.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of Physical Assessment of Patients with Complex Problems, the learner will:

  • Verbalize the purpose and use of the CIWA scale
  • Differentiate between an acute neurological thrombotic event and an hypoxic event
  • Summarize assessment priorities in the patient experiencing an acute coronary syndrome event
  • Describe the patient at risk for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome
  • Discuss the use of serial lab tests in patients with acute GI bleeding
  • Examine the relationship between glomerular filtration rate and renal function and dysfunction
  • List five assessment priorities in patients with multi-system organ dysfunction
  • Describe a patient's potential assessment in crisis with thyroid storm
  • List types of dermatitis
  • Perform a focused assessment of lab values based on the patient's diagnosis and problem list
  • Compare a normal x-ray to an abnormal x-ray

Course Outline

  • Neurological Cases
    • Stroke, Chemical Intoxication
  • Cardiovascular Cases
    • Acute MI, Arrhythmias, Thromboembolus
  • Respiratory Cases
    • Pneumonia, ARDS,
  • Renal Cases
    • Acute Renal Failure, Chronic Renal Dysfunction, Renal Calculi
  • Gastroenterology Cases
    • GI Bleed, Liver Failure
  • Endocrine Cases
    • Thyroid Storm
  • Sepsis
    • Multi-system Organ Dysfunction Vs. Failure
  • Skin
    • Dermatitis
  • Pain Assessment
    • Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
  • Practical Lab
    • Head to Toe Skills Practice
    • Lab Evaluation
    • X-Ray Evaluation


Total Contact Hours - 4.0

Speaker: Devorah Overbay, MSN, RN, CNS

Acute Care Education Associates, Inc. is an approved provider of continuing nursing education by the Washington State Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. 

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