What statement is most accurate in describing tetanus?
a. Inflammatory disease that causes extreme, localized muscle spasm.
b. Disease affecting the salivary gland with resultant stiffness of the jaw.
c. Acute infectious disease caused by an exotoxin produced by an anaerobic spore-forming, gram-positive bacillus.
d. Acute infection that causes meningeal inflammation resulting in symptoms of generalized muscle spasm.
ANS: C
Tetanus results from an infection by the anaerobic spore-forming, gram-positive bacillus Clostridium tetani. The organism forms two exotoxins that affect the central nervous system to produce the clinical manifestations of the disease. Tetanus is not an inflammatory process. The toxin acts at the neuromuscular junction to produce muscular stiffness and to lower the threshold for reflex excitability. It is usually a systemic disease. Initial symptoms are usually a progressive stiffness and tenderness of the muscles of the neck and jaw. The sustained contraction of the jaw-closing muscles provides the name lockjaw. Meningeal inflammation is not the cause of the muscle spasms.
You might also like to view...
After teaching a group of nursing students about corticosteroids, the instructor determines that the teaching was successful when the students identify which of the following as a mineralocorticoid?
A) Hydrocortisone B) Betamethasone C) Triamcinolone D) Fludrocortisone
What information would be most essential to pass on to the next shift in a client with PIH?
a. Blood pressure 150/90 b. Hourly urine output: 40 mL 2 hours ago, 30 mL last hour c. Resp. rate of 20/min d. Right upper quadrant pain
A tracheostomy patient is experiencing regurgitation of tube feeding formul
a. The nurse's first priority should be a. checking to make sure the tracheostomy cuff is inflated during tube feedings. b. placing the patient in the right lateral decubitus position to promote gastric emptying. c. discussing the use of metoclopramide to facilitate gastric motility with the physician. d. placing the patient in prone position to improve draining from mouth.
A male patient tells the nurse that he does not understand why he feels the way he does when he is sexually excited. What would the nurse teach the patient?
A) "I don't know, but I will ask my boyfriend if he can describe his feelings to me." B) "The sexual response cycle includes excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution." C) "That is something that just happens and nobody knows why." D) "Isn't sex wonderful? I think it has different parts to the experience."