How to tell a dark-skinned pt is pale?

[nursing.mypassion]

How to tell a dark-skinned pt is pale just by looking at them?

I know capillary refill may work but how to identify that they are pale just by looking at them?

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

from what I notice is they are more ashen. You can look at their mucous membranes and look inside the inner lower eye lid.

[MickeysMom]

We tend to turn sort of grey or ashy depending how dark the skin is.

[roser13, ASN, RN]

While it's hard to describe, I think it's safe to say that you'll likely know it when you see it. Especially if you've had the patient for a while, you will recognize a change.

[MassED, BSN, RN]

oral mucosa, gums, palms of hands/feet. And once you learn differences in skin tone, you just "know" when they're pale - their skin tone is just different.

I did have a favorite patient who came in frequently in CP and had a defibrillator. He was medium dark skin toned AA. He came in coding one night and I saw his feet, which were ghostly white.... I saw his feet first as he came into the ambulance bay. The rest of his body was the same color..... other than his dreads and looking at his face, I wouldn't have known it was the same person, he was so chalk white.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

Ashen gray skin; pale palms, buccal mucosa, gums and conjunctival mucosa. Dark purplish color, first seen on lips, means cyanosis.

Most very dark-skinned patients have indeed very dark but beautiful "warm" color when they're feeling fine and same dark but "cold" color when they're pale.

It is kind of difficult to imagine till you see the real human being. In some places Macy's has cosmetic lines oriented for dark-skinned customers and they could let you see the difference between "warm" and "cold" variations of one tone, which are quite close to real thing.

[steelydanfan]

I can only descibe it as a "vibrancy" missing from the skin tone, be it white, Asian, African or Hispanic.

[canesdukegirl, BSN, RN]

ALWAYS assess the mucosa to determine paleness. You can't go wrong with this assessment. When I was a vet tech, that was the only way we could assess adequate circulation in animals. In pts with very dark skin, it is sometimes difficult to determine circulatory compromise unless you assess the conjunctiva or the oral mucosa.