Patient A:
The patient is sleepy, but they can respond to the questions asked by the nurses. This means that the patients’ airways are patent and have enough circulation. Once any immediate threats to life such as difficulty in breathing, allergic reactions, significant injuries which we have determined can lead to DKA, a detailed test can be done which includes:
Checking the minimum heart rate
The minimum heart contraction rate
Oxygen concentration
Body temperature
The tests should be done in intervals of not more than twelve hours.
Patients experiencing severe episodes might quickly slump, so it is advisable for the nurses to use of track and trigger system will enable the clinical staff to know when the patients’ health is worsening.
For patient A, the nurse can to another test, namely the neurological exams (Meaden et al., 2018).
The neurologic exam focuses on the nervous system, i.e. the cranial nerve, the motor functioning, sensory nerves, and the person’s reflexes.
Cranial nerves: This test checks the performance of some of the twelve cranial nerves functions like the gag reflex (Martínez‐Marcos and Sañudo, 2019).
Motor functioning: The primary focus will be on the person’s muscles, strength, and coordination.
Sensory functioning: Focus on the person’s sensory nervous response, their proprioception, and finally conduct a Romberg test (Melillo, 2017). The sensory functioning test is usually subjective.
The reflex assessment tests: The test’s objective is to look at the central nervous system (CNS). The focus will be on the spinal cord area and ensuring that it is perfectly poised.
These assessment methods can be used individually or concurrently depending on the severity of the condition stated. Hence clinical judgment should be used to determine the type of evaluation used for any given situation.