Alert and oriented but drowsy

Nurses General Nursing

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Can a patient be alert and oriented but drowsy?

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Can a patient be alert and oriented but drowsy?

I'd typically use "drowsy" in place of "alert" if that were the case.

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.

Lethargic is one of our charting options and I usually make the comment "sleepy" attached to it in the free text area.

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Can a patient be alert and oriented but drowsy?

What are your thoughts?

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A drowsy person isn't alert. A person driving while drowsy is dangerous, a person driving while alert is not.

Are you having trouble with how to chart someone who is lethargic?

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Depends on what you mean by drowsy. Sleeping when you entered the room, they wake up with little stimuli, answer all questions and participate in assessment, and then fall back to sleep when you are done? Or are they falling asleep the moment you stop talking? Are the falling asleep during conversation? I know I've charted many, many times(for our charting system it was AWAKE, alert and oriented as WNL) "Patient sleeping upon entering room. Awakens for assessment, answers questions appropriately, patient states "I'm tired today, didn't sleep well last night" fell asleep following assessement, will continue to monitor." There are just too many factors to determine if "drowsy" is the correct term

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