The patient is unconscious and is experiencing breathing difficulties; the first thing the nurses will do is place them on a ventilator that will aid them in breathing. The nurse will then have to look at and record the patients; heart rate, body temperature, and oxygen concentration. And most importantly, the nurse will try to ensure all life-threatening situations that may affect the patient are immediately neutralized (Jameson et al., 2005).
The patient will then be tested using some of the most preferred methods, which include:
A blood test: Once the blood sample is drawn from the patient and screened, the nurse will check for the following things (Dhatariya and Vellanki, 2017);
The glucose levels are higher than two hundred and fifty grams per dl, and the nurse will check if the patient has pH levels of less than 7.3. The two mean that the patient has diabetes ketoacidosis (Koul, 2009). Both the results show after one or two hours.
Patients might show abnormal signs due to the presence of the following diseases hyperglycaemia, ketonuria, and acidaemia. Hyperglycaemia and ketonuria tests may be done using a finger prick test to determine the blood sugar levels and ketone levels (Luethi et al., 2016). These tests should be done initially, and the results checked if the results show glucose levels more than 11mols/l or ketone levels of less than 3mols/l. This means that the patient might be suffering from diabetic ketoacidosis.
A ketone meter test: It is usually used to determine the levels of ketone in a patient’s body (Vandamme, 2018). But the patients’ urine can also be applied using the dipstick test to test for ketonuria. The test will look at the acetone and acetoacetic levels in the urine. An alkaline called nitroprusside combines with the acids to form a complex compound, which is usually purple. The intensity of the colour will be contrasted with the colours on a pre-determined chart. If the chart results are more than two, this is an indication of diabetic ketoacidosis