Abdominal assessment?

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Specializes in LTC.

Is it inspection, auscultation, percussion, palpation? If not what is it? Thanks!

Yes you have the order correct. We don't want to falsely disturb the actual pattern of the bowel, so we inspect, auscultate, percuss, palpate!

Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

yes, that is the correct order of examination for the abdomen:

  1. inspection
  2. auscultation - doing percussion and palpation first will cause an increase of the bowel sounds
  3. percussion
  4. palpation

http://meded.ucsd.edu/clinicalmed/abdomen.htm - exam of the abdomen

http://www.meddean.luc.edu/lumen/meded/medicine/pulmonar/pd/contents.htm - screening physical exam; click on the various components under "abdomen" to see pictures and descriptions of the techniques for examining and assessing the abdomen.

other assessment weblinks, including videos, can also be found on this sticky thread:

Specializes in psych,and detox,and Ltc.

Oh do I remember this from 1st semester....yes that is correct.

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