Videos: Health Assessments and Skills

Here are some quick videos you can review before your clinicals.  Depending on the unit you’re on, different assessments may be more critical than others.  It is good if you could look at your patient’s primary and secondary diagnosis first, and then choose the appropriate assessments.

Practice makes perfect~! It is often easy to just watch videos over and over again (something alot of nursing programs are implementing), but when we actually have to do the assessments it is just as easy to blank out.  I found that doing parts of each assessment, and taking every opportunity to practice ausculatating and palapating during the morning assessments was helpful as a review.  For system reviews in general, I use IPPPA (Inspection, Pain, Palpation, Percussion, Ausclatation) to make sure I cover most parts of the assessment.

Every patient will have different heart, lung, and bowel sounds, so I think about it as developing my own library of sounds through experience.   Take the opportunity to ask your patient if it is ok for you to do a general assessment on them, and incorporate all the vital systems (cardio, repiratory, GI… whatever is relevant for the patient that you can squeeze in during the daily vitals).  If they say no, that’s ok, but at least you asked right?  Don’t be afraid to ask for a second opinion, if your clinical instructor won’t give you an opinion, ask another student to verify; it’ll give you an opportunity to learn together.  Sharing is Caring ❤

Neurological Assessments

Cranial Nerves: The first video is a detailed overview of CN1-12, may not be relevant for all cases. I don’t think I would do the corneal reflex or hit the jaw of my patient to check for a reflex.  These exams can also be modified depending on the situation, as shown in the second video for CN exam in an Emergency Department.  What is even more interesting is the difference between a novice and expert practitioner in these videos. 

Cardiovascular: If you plan to do a cardio and respiratory assessment on the patient, it is easier to first inspect and palpate for all the signs, and ausclatate the heart and lung sounds at the same time. It will reduce the amount of times you have to go back to the chest, and allows your assessment to run smoother. 

Heart & Lung Sounds:

This is an amazing and informative quiz about heart sounds brought to you by Blaufuss Multimedia

Heart Sounds Quiz

Additional Heart Sounds

Respiratory: Doing this assessment will allow you to get an accurate breathing rate if you find it difficult to count the breaths by inspection.  This could occur if your patient doesn’t have alot of breathing movements and most often in the geriatric population.  If you want to stick with inspection, it is sometimes easier to stare at the abdomen to count breaths instead of the chest.

Gastrointestinal

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