With abdominal assessment, you inspect first, then auscultate, percuss, and palpate. This order is different from the rest of the body systems, for which you inspect, then percuss, palpate, and auscultate.
Q. How do you do a GI assessment?
Gastrointestinal. Assessment will include inspection, auscultation and light palpation of the abdomen to identify visible abnormalities; bowel sounds and softness/tenderness. Ensure stomach is not full at time of assessment as this may induce vomiting.
Table of Contents
- Q. How do you do a GI assessment?
- Q. How do you assess for a small bowel obstruction?
- Q. What are the components of a gastrointestinal assessment?
- Q. What is the order of physical assessment?
- Q. What is the purpose of an abdominal assessment?
- Q. What must be kept in mind before abdominal assessment?
- Q. What are doctors looking for when they press on your stomach?
- Q. What does abdominal guarding feel like?
- Q. What does abdominal guarding indicate?
- Q. How do you test for guarding?
Q. How do you assess for a small bowel obstruction?
Tests and procedures used to diagnose intestinal obstruction include:
- Physical exam. Your doctor will ask about your medical history and your symptoms.
- X-ray. To confirm a diagnosis of intestinal obstruction, your doctor may recommend an abdominal X-ray.
- Computerized tomography (CT).
- Ultrasound.
- Air or barium enema.
Q. What are the components of a gastrointestinal assessment?
Physical exam techniques such as inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation will be highlighted. Additionally, throughout the course, you will learn how alterations in your assessment findings could indicate potential gastrointestinal problems. Ask your patients if they have had any changes in appetite.
Q. What is the order of physical assessment?
WHEN YOU PERFORM a physical assessment, you’ll use four techniques: inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation. Use them in sequence—unless you’re performing an abdominal assessment. Palpation and percussion can alter bowel sounds, so you’d inspect, auscultate, percuss, then palpate an abdomen.
Q. What is the purpose of an abdominal assessment?
Purpose. The purpose of the abdominal exam is to get more information that could indicate what is causing the patient’s symptoms. The physician gains information by inspecting, auscultating, palpating, and percussing the abdomen.
Q. What must be kept in mind before abdominal assessment?
The history should include characterization of the time frame, subjective description, severity, pattern, and location of the pain and other complaints.
Q. What are doctors looking for when they press on your stomach?
Pressing on your stomach is a way to find out if the size of your internal organs is normal, to check if anything hurts, and to feel if anything unusual is going on. Looking, listening, and feeling are all part of a physical exam.
Q. What does abdominal guarding feel like?
Abdominal guarding is the tensing of the abdominal wall muscles to guard inflamed organs within the abdomen from the pain of pressure upon them. The tensing is detected when the abdominal wall is pressed.
Q. What does abdominal guarding indicate?
Abdominal guarding is detected when the abdomen is pressed and is an indication that inflammation of the inner abdominal (peritoneal) surface may be present due, for example, to appendicitis or diverticulitis.
Q. How do you test for guarding?
rigidity test. Guarding involves voluntarily flexing your abdominal muscles, making your abdomen feel firm to the tough. Rigidity is abdominal firmness that’s not related to flexing muscles. Your doctor can tell the difference by gently touching your abdomen and seeing if firmness decreases when you relax.
