W#4 Health Assessment (Peer replies)

(My initial Post)

Reflect on the focus area or system(s) for the week.

· What challenges might you anticipate in completing this assessment?

· What differences might you anticipate when assessing patients across the lifespan?

· Share findings from scholarly resources that help in the performance of this assessment.

The assessment of the abdomen is primarily regarded as one of the most common clinical roles. This notion is associated with the likelihood that a good number of conditions reported at the clinical level include the gastro-intestinal system or those that result in changes in abdominal status. Most healthcare practitioners will recognize that the four assessment techniques namely inspection, auscultation, percussion, palpation are applicable in the assessment of the abdomen than any other region (Zeng, 2020). However, in my time within clinical settings, I found applying these techniques quite complex. Notably, I found it difficult to apply the palpation technique as advised by my clinical preceptor. My clinical preceptor had an emphasis that when using the palpation technique, light and deep palpation should be performed. While I understood the theoretical aspect and necessity of it, the practical determination of the extent of light and deep requires some experience. For the other three techniques, I found them more applicable and without much complication as long as one recognizes the unique differences in texture, color, and general appearance for patients across the lifespan.  In the assessment of the skin, hair, and nails the inspection technique is the most utilized. In my view, comprehensive inspection of the skin, hair, and nails provides for the significant information that may be needed to inform clinical decisions. In skin inspection, there are three key attributes to check and they include skin integrity, color variations, and skin lesions. The biggest challenge in assessing the skin for these attributes is recognizing the differences across the lifespan. For instance, dry and cracked skin may not inform much in an elderly patient as it would inform in an infant (Jarvis, 2018). These age-related differences are critical in clinical decision making. However, I consider that knowing and applying those differences comes with clinical experience and sometimes new nurse practitioners may not find it easy identifying such differences or even considering them in the findings. References  Jarvis, C. (2018). Physical Examination and Health Assessment-Canadian E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences. Zeng, R. (2020). Complete Physical Examination. In Handbook of Clinical Diagnostics (pp. 265-271). Springer, Singapore.