Focused Assessments

whatever is going wrong with the anatomy and physiology to give you the disease or condition is also producing the signs and symptoms. understanding that concept helps you to discover the abnormal assessment data you are looking for when assessing patients with certain diseases.

in my copy of nursing care plans: guidelines for individualizing client care across the life span, 7th edition, by marilynn e. doenges, mary frances moorhouse and alice c. murr they list very specific nursing assessment data that is included for a number of the major medical diseases. they do the same in maternal/newborn plans of care: guidelines for individual care, 3rd edition, by marilynn e. doenges and mary frances moorhouse. those are the specific care plan books that i know of that have really good focused assessment information.

there are certain organizations and websites devoted to specific diseases that will have some information on them, but it is generally geared to the consumer. when i am looking for the signs and symptoms of a disease on the web i usually have to piece it together. there are plenty of websites that will give you the signs and symptoms of medical diseases and conditions but you will have to figure out the adl connections.

• family practice notebook (use search box and input a disease) http://www.fpnotebook.com/index.htm - concise lists of signs and symptoms
  
• merck manual of diagnosis and therapy http://www.merck.com/mrkshared/mmanual/sections.jsp
  
• web md index list of medical conditions http://www.webmd.com/a_to_z_guide/health_topics.htm - consumer information on just about any medical problem
  

i keep a list of websites on this sticky thread: https://allnurses.com/nursing-student-assistance/medical-disease-information-258109.html - medical disease information/treatment/procedures/test reference websites