A comprehensive health history is essential to providing quality care for patients across the lifespan, as it helps to properly identify health risks, diagnose patients, and develop individualized treatment plans. To effectively collect these heath histories, you must not only have strong communication skills, but also the ability to quickly establish trust and confidence with your patients. For this Assignment, you begin building your communication and assessment skills as you collect a health history from a volunteer “patient.”

 

To prepare:

 

Arrange an appropriate time and setting with your volunteer “patient” to collect a health history.

 

 

Note: Your volunteer’s Video Release Form must be submitted prior to collecting the health history. Refer to the Week 1 Looking Ahead for release form details.

Download and review the History Subjective Data Checklist provided in this week’s Learning Resources.

Ensure that you have appropriate lighting to record yourself collecting the patient’s health history.

To complete:

 

Record yourself collecting the patient’s health history, covering all of the areas listed in the checklist.

 

Week in Review

This week, you discussed various assessment tools and diagnostic tests that are used to gather information about patients’ conditions. In addition, you also examined the validity and reliability of these tests and tools. The assessment techniques, health risks and concerns, and recommendations for care related to patient growth, weight, and nutrition were also assessed.

 

Next week, you will explore how to assess the skin, hair, and nails, as well as how to evaluate abnormal skin findings while conducting health assessments.Week 4: Assessment of the Skin, Hair, and Nails

Something as small and simple as a mole or a discolored toenail can offer meaningful clues about a patient’s health. Abnormalities in skin, hair, and nails can provide non-invasive external clues to internal disorders or even prove to be disorders themselves. Being able to evaluate such abnormalities of the skin, hair, and nails is a diagnostic benefit for any nurse conducting health assessments.

 

This week, you will explore how to assess the skin, hair, and nails, as well as how to evaluate abnormal skin findings.

 

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Apply assessment skills to diagnose skin conditions

Apply concepts, theories, and principles relating to health assessment techniques and diagnoses for the skin, hair, and nails

Apply assessment skills to collect patient health histories

Photo Credit: Keri Oberly/Getty Images

 

Learning Resources

Required Readings

Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus.

 

Ball, J. W., Dains, J. E., Flynn, J. A., Solomon, B. S., & Stewart, R. W. (2015). Seidel’s guide to physical examination (8th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.

 

Chapter 8, “Skin, Hair, and Nails” (pp. 114-165)

 

 

This chapter reviews the basic anatomy and physiology of skin, hair, and nails. The chapter also describes guidelines for proper skin, hair, and nails assessments.

 

Dains, J. E., Baumann, L. C., & Scheibel, P. (2016). Advanced health assessment and clinical diagnosis in primary care (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.

 

Chapter 28, “Rashes and Skin Lesions” (pp. 325-343)

 

 

This chapter explains the steps in an initial examination of someone with dermatological problems, including the type of information that needs to be gathered and assessed.

 

Note: Download and use the Adult Examination Checklist and the Physical Exam Summary when you conduct your video assessment of the skin, hair, and nails.

 

Seidel, H. M., Ball, J. W., Dains, J. E., Flynn, J. A., Solomon, B. S., & Stewart, R. W. (2011). Adult examination checklist: Guide for skin, hair, and nails. In Mosby’s guide to physical examination (7th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.

 

 

 

This Adult Examination Checklist: Guide for Skin, Hair, and Nails was published as a companion to Seidel’s guide to physical examination (8th ed.), by Ball, J. W., Dains, J. E., & Flynn, J. A. Copyright Elsevier (2015). From https://evolve.elsevier.com/