Question

A 73-year-old female presents to the emergency department with nausea and confusion. The client normally takes digoxin, furosemide, and enalapril.
A. What will the nurse assess when caring for this patient? Include physical assessment and laboratory monitoring.
B. The patient's digoxin level of 2.2 ng/mL. What does the nurse do with this information?

Answer 1

The 73year old female patient has came to the emergency department with nausea and confusion and on primary asking the patient she has informed that she is normally taking digoxin, furosemide and enalapril, the initial assessment that the nurse should take is to check for vital signs and blood examination to examine whether the digoxin levels are in the normal range or more or less, because the elderly person may suffer with digoxin toxicity, and this patient is also on furosemide which is a diuresis which cause water and electrolyte depletion and she is also on enalapril which is used to treat high blood pressure, when we see drug to drug interactions between furosemide and enalapril gives an additive effects on lowering the blood pressure which results in the nausea and confusion. B. The patients digoxin level is 2.2ng/ml, it shows the probability of digoxin toxicity so the nurse should inform to the physician. about this .