Fluid and Electrolytes: Balance and Disturbance

1. Mrs. Dean is 75-year-old woman admitted to the hospital for a small bowel obstruction. Her medical history includes hypertension. Mrs. Dean is NPO. She has a nasogastric (NG) tube to low continuous suction. She has an IV of 0.9% NS at 83 mL/hr. Current medications include furosemide 20 mg daily and hydromorphone 0.2 mg every 4 hours, as needed for pain. The morning electrolytes reveal serum potassium of 3.2 mEq/L. (Learning Objective 4)

1. What are possible causes of a low potassium level?
2. What action should the nurse take in relation to the serum potassium level?
3. What clinical manifestations might the nurse assess in Mrs. Dean? 

2. Conrad Jackson is a 28-year-old man who presents to the emergency department with severe fatigue and dehydration secondary to a 4-day history of vomiting. During the interview, he describes attending a family reunion and states that perhaps he “ate something bad.” Upon admission his vital signs are a temperature of 102.7°F, heart rate of 116 bpm, respiratory rate of 18 breaths/min, and blood pressure of 86/54 mm Hg. The nurse also notes the patient has dry mucous membranes and tenting of skin. The physician orders an IV to be started with 0.45% normal saline, and orders a serum electrolytes and an arterial blood gas. (Learning Objective 7)

The following results are returned from the laboratory:

Sodium (Na+)  150

Potassium (K+)  5.5

Chloride (Cl¯)  110

BUN    42

Creatinine   0.8

Glucose   86

pH   7.32

PaCO2    35

HCO3¯    20

PaO2    90

O2 Sat    98%

1. What is your interpretation of this arterial blood gas sample?
2. Explain the high potassium in this patient.
3. Calculate the patient’s anion gap:
4. What is the interpretation of this anion gap? 

Comprehensive psychiatric evaluations are a way to reflect on your practicum experiences and connect the experiences to the learning you gain from your weekly Learning Resources. Comprehensive notes, such as the ones required in this practicum course, are often used in clinical settings to document patient care.

For this Assignment, you will document information about a patient that you examined during the last 5 weeks, using the Comprehensive Psychiatric Evaluation Template provided. You will then use this note to develop and record a case presentation for this patient.

To Prepare

• Select a patient that you examined during the last 5 weeks. Review prior resources on the disorder this patient has. Also review the Kaltura Media Uploader resource in the left-hand navigation of the classroom for help creating your self-recorded Kaltura video.
• Conduct a Comprehensive Psychiatric Evaluation on this patient using the template provided in the Learning Resources. There is also a completed exemplar document in the Learning Resources so that you can see an example of the types of information a completed evaluation document should contain. All psychiatric evaluations must be signed, and each page must be initialed by your Preceptor. When you submit your document, you should include the complete Comprehensive Psychiatric Evaluation as a Word document, as well as a PDF/images of each page that is initialed and signed by your Preceptor. You must submit your document using SafeAssign. Please Note: Electronic signatures are not accepted. If both files are not received by the due date, Faculty will deduct points per the Walden Late Policies.