Help, question about a patient

[david0188]

LPN here, only for 2 years, here at a psych hospital. Ok, one of my patients who's in for bipolar and confusion is a very old woman. She's a Walky-talky and was running around the unit without any issues. Well just out of pure curiosity I decided to check her O2 sats and it was at 83%. I noticed she was on albuterol via nebulizer treatments as needed so I applied one. But she remained at 83%... So now I have her on O2 n/c @ 2L... I know I won't get an answer soon enough, but I'll like something for future reference, my charge nurse is kind of clueless... Oh and the patients has hx of asthma and copd, no symptoms of distress, she's sleeping. Should I be really alarmed? I know this sounds dumb lol

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

People don't leave their medical problems behind when they step onto a psych unit.

This, this, this. Anyone working in psych should make an effort to keep up their medical-based nursing knowledge because of situations just like this.

Even though treatments and O2 are on tap--and it was good of you to administer them--your patient needs a medical consult. If she's got COPD and is not in apparent respiratory distress, this may be baseline/normal for her--and treating just to get the desired sat number will be an exercise in futility. But let the medical consult determine what's going on with the patient (if anything) and the best way it should be handled.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

As others have said never discount medical problems in psychiatric patients

[heron, ASN, RN]

In all fairness, I have to point out that nurses working outside a psych setting are also woefully deficient in the basics of behavioral nursing. We each have expertise to offer the other.