This video will explain in detail what you can expect to do. It will also supplement any existing qualification and experience you have in this subject and procedures, refresh your memory and prepare you for a regulated training course. (Of course, it is not a substitute for a course.)
Adult Nurse, Claire Carmichael, gives an expansive overview of all things related to observations, and explains the equipment you will be using, recording your findings, and what they could indicate.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another clinical skills video. In today's video we're going to be going through vital signs or also known as observations.
What Are Observations Or Vital Signs?
Firstly, what are observations or vital signs? Observations are basically a set of things that you assess on a patient and it all starts from the minute you look at your patient.
As you walk up to your patient, you will notice if they're looking a little bit off, if the colour is draining from the face, if they've got blue tinges to the lips, if they're struggling to breathe.
You will be able to recognize if something's really wrong with your patient just by looking at them. And in other cases, patients will be absolutely normal, up, energetic, feeling absolutely fine, but underneath there is something going on and those sort of things can be picked up through your vital signs and observation monitoring.
What Do I Mean By Observation Monitoring?
Things like blood pressure, so checking your patient's blood pressure. Pulse rate, you will check your patient's pulse rate. Breathing rate, how many times are they breathing per minute?
Oxygen levels in the body. Temperature, usually in the ears now. I don't think they do rectum or under the tongue as far as I'm aware. Some places might still have that.
But usually it's within the ear now or they've got the forehead scanners. How accurate the forehead scanners are, I'm not sure. And their conscious levels and all of these are going to paint a picture of your patient for you.
And research shows that actually observation monitoring, so doing that complete set of observations or vital signs on your patient, can literally be lifesaving.
Because usually the first thing to go is something is going AWOL in the body, which is going to trigger the observation charts.
About this contributor
Registered Nurse
I am a Registered Nurse with over 12 years healthcare experience including: elderly care, orthopaedics, sexual health / family planning, qualified GP nurse, transgender healthcare and now in my new role as an assistant lecturer (as of Nov 2022). I believe that nursing gets a lot of bad press, so I create blogs and vlogs to help anyone considering their nursing career and to create positivity surrounding our profession as I'm so passionate about nursing.
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