A&O x... How many?

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.

As a new nurse, I continue to learn from each and every patient interaction.

Here's something I learned last week...

A lot of my older, retired patients - especially the guys for some reason - have no idea what the date is and often not even a good sense of what day it is... and yet they're totally oriented.

As one guy just told me, "Heck, I've been retired for 20 years... why do I care what the date is... I don't even wear a watch."

As we continued to get to know each other it came up that he was a baseball pitcher as a young man. Into my assessment I then dropped the question, "how far is it from the mound to home plate?" His immediate response was, "60 feet, 6 inches." He also knew that pitchers and catchers are reporting soon.

Yep, alert and oriented all right... just with no clue as to the day or date.

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Specializes in ICU.

Being in the hospital can be very disorienting, especially when it comes to the date. I barely know the date myself, I couldn't imagine what it would be like if I were in the hospital, being woken up day and night and being sick. I generally just ask people what month/year it is.

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Specializes in mental health, military nursing.

I always thought that was a silly question - I almost always have to look at my calendar for the date. When needed, I'll ask what season it is, or what month.

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Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Pediatric Home Health.

I agree with the other posters -- month and year are enough to be oriented to "time". Like the others, I don't even know what date or day it is without looking... during my work week, the days mesh together and I don't care to think what day or date it is.

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Specializes in Public Health, TB.

When I'm not working I seldom know the date, especially now that I seldom write checks.

That being said knowing the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate would be something ingrained in long-term memory while the date would be short-term. My dear old dad knows the address of his home he's been in for 50 years, but depends on his daily newspaper for the date. I doubt he could even know the month without it.

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Specializes in cardiothoracic surgery.

I don't ask what day it is either, it is not a fair question. I will usually ask what month it is.

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Specializes in IMC, ED.

Month, year, season. Sometimes "who is the president of the US" if I get "Bush" I continue to assess with another question, if I get "Carter", I have my answer!

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Month, year, season. Sometimes "who is the president of the US" if I get "Bush" I continue to assess with another question, if I get "Carter", I have my answer!

related to the president question.....i was doing a home care admission around the time of Clinton's daliance with monica.....the patient had a trach and there was at least some concern about his mentition.....asked him who the pres. was.....he took a real deep breath an rasped out best he was able "WE DONT HAVE ONE" i did have to bite my tongue but he was ajudged by me to be oriented.....lol

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Month, year, season. Sometimes "who is the president of the US" if I get "Bush" I continue to assess with another question, if I get "Carter", I have my answer!

--------------------------------------------:lol2:

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Specializes in Critical Care.

The only ones I care about are name and situation (ie, why the hell are you in the hospital?).

I don't ask "who is the president" anymore because I live in Texas and the answer I am likely to get from one of our many dubiously oriented Palin-Americans is, "there is no legitimate current president because the office it currently under siege by a Kenyan musosocialcommie without a real birth certificate".

And I'm not even close to joking on the above. It would be bad faith of me not to mark such patients as disoriented and quite possibly delirious.

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i'll ask month, year or if there is a holiday coming up or just passed i'll ask about that

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related to the president question.....i was doing a home care admission around the time of Clinton's daliance with monica.....the patient had a trach and there was at least some concern about his mentition.....asked him who the pres. was.....he took a real deep breath an rasped out best he was able "WE DONT HAVE ONE" i did have to bite my tongue but he was ajudged by me to be oriented.....lol

LOL I was assessing orientation in a hospital setting and asked the lol who the pres was (around the same time as above) and she couldn't name him but said "Oh, that mess..." Yep, A&Ox3.

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