Question

A licensed practical nursing student has just been assigned a resident with C. Diff.

1. What precautions should the nurse take while caring for this resident?

The student nurse takes the resident’s vital signs and obtains the results below:

Temperature: 99.2° F

Pulse: 114

Respirations: 20

Blood Pressure: 154/88

SpO²: 96%

2. Which of the following vital signs should be reported to the nurse caring for the resident?

3. What could be the cause of the abnormal vital signs?

4. The student nurse needs to assess the resident’s pain, but the resident is unable to communicate with the nursing student. How can the student nurse assess the pain?

The resident occasionally grimaces and moans when moving around in bed. The resident seems tense and restless, but is easily consoled when talked to by the nursing student.

5. Using the FLACC scale, how would the nursing student rate the resident’s pain?

Answer 1

clostridium difficile colitis is the inflammation of the colon by clostridium difficile as a result of antibiotics which destroy the resident healthy bacteria. it is transmitted through spores by contact with contaminated objects(while using same toilet, blanket doorknob etc)

1.precautions

wash hands before after caring for the patient and often, especially before eating and after using toilet.

wear gloves and gown before entering the room.

clean the equipments that have been used for C.difficle patient.

only take antibiotics as prescribed by the doctor

2.patient has hypertension(154/88 mm Hg) and tachycardia(114 bpm)

also, has a mild temperature of 99.2 degrees F

3. elevated blood pressure and pulse rate could be due to severe pain, mild fever is common symptom for C.difficile.

4. student can evaluate pain by using a pain scale with picture representation, it would be easy for the patient since not able to communicate properly. other way is to assess using FLACC pain, by marking patient's response.

5. can mark based on the assessment of face, legs, activity, cry and consolability. 10 is the maximum score. for this patient, it would be 5 since he got 1 score for each.