Shadow Health Focused Abdominal Pain (2024)

FAQs

What questions are asked for abdominal pain focused assessment? ›

Do you have any abdominal pain? Are there any associated symptoms with the pain such as fever, nausea, vomiting, or change in bowel pattern? Are you having bloody stools (hematochezia); dark, tarry stools (melena); abdominal distention; or vomiting of blood (hematemesis)?

Park's symptoms and health history suggest she has constipation. Differential diagnoses are constipation, diverticulitis, and intestinal obstruction.

Position the patient in the supine position and drape the patient, exposing only the areas needed for assessment. Inspect the abdomen for shape/contour, symmetry, pigmentation/color, lesions/scars, pulsation, and visible peristalsis. Auscultate using the diaphragm of the stethoscope to assess for bowel sounds.

Prolonged bed rest leads to gastrointestinal problems that are caused by the effect of gravity. Instead of going aborally, due to the effects of laying down, the contents of the stomach can go into the esophagus, which causes damage to the esophageal mucosa.

Red flags for serious pathology

Pain characteristics: sudden onset of severe pain, pain interrupting sleep, 'worst ever' or 'tearing', pain out of proportion to abdominal findings. Signs of peritonitis: guarding or rigidity, percussion tenderness, pain on coughing, patient lying very still.

Basic Components of Abdominal Examination

Following a quick assessment, the abdominal examination consists of 4 basic components—inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation.

Mrs. Esther Park is a 78-year-old woman who comes to the clinic complaining of abdominal pain. She reports that the pain isn't severe, but that her daughter was concerned and brought her in. It is very important to determine whether or not the situation is an emergency and the underlying cause of Esther's discomfort.

Normal findings might be documented as: “Abdomen flat, symmetrical with no bulging, swelling, discolouration. Skin intact.” Abnormal findings might be documented as: “Client grimacing with shallow irregular breathing. Abdomen distended.”

The shadow appears as a dense ovoid, or well-rounded tumefaction, lying beneath the cusp of the diaphragm and adjacent to the eleventh and twelfth dorsal vertebrre. The configuration varies considerably with change in the level of the diaphragm and with alteration in the content of the fundus of the stomach.

Abdominal inspection

Abdominal distension: can be caused by a wide range of pathology including the six f's (fat, fluid, flatus, faeces, fetus or fulminant mass). Caput medusae: engorged paraumbilical veins associated with portal hypertension (e.g. liver cirrhosis).

How to do assessment for abdominal pain? ›

While in supine position, ask the patient to identify the point of maximum pain, and palpate there with moderate pressure to elicit tenderness. Then, ask the patient to raise their shoulders off the bed as if they were doing a sit-up. This action contracts the abdominal wall muscles.

Assessing your patient's abdomen can provide critical information about his internal organs. Always follow this sequence: inspection, auscultation, percussion, and palpation. Changing the order of these assessment techniques could alter the frequency of bowel sounds and make your findings less accurate.

Yes, staying in bed too much can be unhealthy for both physical and mental well-being. Excessive time in bed can lead to a range of health issues, including muscle weakness, reduced cardiovascular fitness, impaired glucose tolerance, and an increased risk of chronic diseases.

Staying in bed can make joints—muscles and the tissues around them (ligaments and tendons)—stiff. Over time, muscles can become permanently shortened, and stiff joints can become permanently bent—called a contracture.

Abstract. Prolonged bed rest and immobilization inevitably lead to complications. Such complications are much easier to prevent than to treat. Musculoskeletal complications include loss of muscle strength and endurance, contractures and soft tissue changes, disuse osteoporosis, and degenerative joint disease.

Patients should be asked specifically about indigestion, nausea, vomiting, appetite, and bowel habits. History of abdominal issues, surgeries, or trauma should be elicited.

Technique or Treatment

Both of these acronyms summarize the character, onset, location, duration exacerbating symptoms, relieving symptoms, radiation of pain, associated symptoms, and severity of illness. A multidimensional assessment of a patient's pain and the severity of their pain can be completed.