Life Saving Reality
During the primary assessment, this tool is used to determine if the patient is alert.
What is the AVPU scale?
Alert, Verbal, Painful, Unresponsive
The incidence of infection increases with the size of the burn wound due to this.
What is because the skin is the first line of defense against microorganisms?
An infectious agent that can be aerosolized and is associated with a high mortality rate, making it a high-priority bioterrorism threat.
What is anthrax?
Apply direct pressure to an external bleeding site, along with elevation of the site if it's a limb will allow for this.
What is stop the flow of blood and allow normal coagulation to occur?
A quick way to estimate the Total Body Surface Area, or TBSA, affected by a burn.
What is the Rule of Nines?
The airway maneuver used when a patient has a suspected c-spine injury.
What is a jaw-thrust maneuver?
A full-thickness burn is also known by this name, which describes the thick, leathery, burned tissue.
What is an eschar?
The standard precaution a nurse should prioritize when caring for a patient suspected of having a bioterrorism-related respiratory illness.
What is airborne isolation precautions?
Cover exposed organs with sterile saline-soaked gauze for this reason.
An adult patient has full-thickness burns to their entire left arm, front and back.
What is 9% TBSA?
This is the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score for a patient who opens their eyes to sound, is confused, and withdraws from pain.
What is 10?
This is calculated by adding the eye opening score (2 for to sound), the verbal score (3 for confused), and the motor score (5 for withdraws from pain). The total score helps determine the severity of a brain injury: mild (13-15), moderate (9-12), or severe (3-8).
The most critical nursing priority during the emergent phase of a burn injury.
What is airway management?
This syndrome, caused by a Category A agent, can lead to descending flaccid paralysis that the nurse must monitor for.
What is botulism?
This results when blood or fluid accumulates in the pericardial sac.
What is cardiac tamponade?
A 30-year-old patient has partial-thickness burns on their entire posterior trunk and the front of their right leg.
What is 27% TBSA? (18% for the posterior trunk and 9% for the anterior right leg)
Name the components of the secondary survey, and what kind of patients are they completed on.
What are the head, spine, chest, abdomen, and musculoskeletal system, and severe trauma patients?
This non-surgical procedure involves cutting through the eschar to restore circulation to the burn-injured limb.
What is an escharotomy?
The most critical nursing intervention for a large group of people exposed to a nerve agent during a bioterrorism attack.
What is rapid decontamination?
Two or more rib fractures not attached on either end.
What is a flail chest?
For a 5-year-old child, the head and neck account for a higher percentage of TBSA than an adult.
What is 18%?
This is the action that is taken if the patient does not have a pulse.
What is cardiac compressions are started?
The primary electrolyte imbalance a nurse would anticipate during the emergent phase of a burn injury.
What is hyperkalemia?
This is the specific nursing action for a patient who presents with smallpox-like lesions and the nurse has confirmed the suspected exposure.
What is immediately isolating the patient in a negative-pressure room?
Name the three forms of heat exposure that hyperthermia can manifest.
What are heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and heatstroke?
The TBSA of a pediatric patient with full-thickness burns to the entire front and back of the head and neck and the anterior side of both legs.
What is 32% TBSA? (18% for the head and neck, 7% for the anterior right leg, and 7% for the anterior left leg)