Common Labs help

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I am in nursing school writing a paper on a suicidal 16 year old girl - she was prescribed 100mg sertaline and is in a psych unit first day- part of the paper includes medical manangement I have to include

Common labs and dx tests and

Medical/ surgical treatment

The only thing I can come up w/ are urinalysis for pregnancy, drugs and alcohol what other kinds of labs would be run or medical management issues would she have?

Thanks for your help!

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Specializes in Psych, ER, Resp/Med, LTC, Education.

TSH...for sure. can explain new depression so you should always rule out. Some docs like to do a CBC with diff to be sure there is no infections, check liver funtion, etc. for a baseline.

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Specializes in Psych, ER, Resp/Med, LTC, Education.

Oh and.....BTW...They need to do a chem 14 or 20 to get the liver fx.....as oppose to a 7. This will give you the electrolytes, liver fx, renal fx, etc.....and too if she is depressed and not been eating/drinking well they can see how her lytes are and if she is dehydrated.

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Specializes in LTC, Memory loss, PDN.

CBC w. diff and chem 14 - can't go wrong there, I'd like to see albumin level.

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

I'd run all those and depending on the area she lives in maybe even a Lyme titer - run it if it is a hot bed for lyme disease. That can cause encephalopathy which may trigger suicidal ideations.

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