A nurse asks a patient, "If you had fever and vomiting for 3 days, what would you do?" Which aspect of the mental status examination is the nurse assessing?
a. Behavior
b. Cognition
c. Affect and mood
d. Perceptual disturbances
ANS: B
Assessing cognition involves determining a patient's judgment and decision making. In this case, the nurse would expect a response of "Call my doctor" if the patient's cognition and judgment are intact. If the patient responds, "I would stop eating" or "I would just wait and see what happened," the nurse would conclude that judgment is impaired. The other options refer to other aspects of the examination.
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A patient is brought to the ED and determined to be experiencing symptomatic sinus bradycardia. The nurse caring for this patient is aware the medication of choice for treatment of this dysrhythmia is the administration of atropine
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A patient has arrived at the critical care unit with a head injury. On admission, the patient is talking and is a little drowsy but oriented
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