areas of meaningful focus for pt with a-fib

Nursing Students Student Assist

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Specializes in acute care for elders, general medicine.

Ok, I'm having a brain dead moment...working on a CDM while waiting for the sleeping pill to kick in!

The pt: 91F with a-fib, living alone at home, independently

What areas of meaningful focus do you see in this situation?

Care to throw some ideas out and get my brain working?

Thanks much!

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What kind of assessment data do you have on this patient? What complications can result from atrial fibrillation?

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Specializes in ER; HBOT- lots others.

risk for injury has to be one, in my opinion. if pt is at home and doesnt take meds, wrong dose, strokes out.. anything like that there is risk for injury because pt is alone. say no one visits him and he falls, maybe he cant get back up.. and i could be wrong, maybe he has LifeAlert....I'VE FALLEN AND CANT GET UP kind of a situation! lol..srry...its late and i am tired.

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

what's a cdm? i wish you wouldn't use abbreviations and assume that everyone knows what they mean?

i would imagine that you will want to assess the patient for the signs and symptoms of atrial fib which are:

  • an irregular pulse
  • palpitations
  • dizziness
  • possible tachycardia
  • hypotension
  • signs and symptoms of heart failure, exacerbation of congestive heart failure
  • respiratory distress
  • dyspnea

since the patient is also elderly, you will also want to refer to somthing like erikson's developmental stages to see how the patient measures up for the older adult erikson's stage is integrity vs despair where the person reviews life accomplishments, deals with loss and prepares for death. you also want to assess the patient's ability to accomplish his adls on a daily basis. that is an important part of what we nurses do beside carry out doctor's orders.

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