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Four Techniques of Physical Assessment

When a patient goes to a health-care provider for any type of complaint, the visit begins with the four techniques of physical assessment: inspection, palpation, percussion and auscultation. The health-care provider is able to determine information during the assessment that leads her to a diagnosis and helps her make recommendations to the patient.

  1. Inspection

    • Inspection is the first part of the physical assessment. The health-care provider looks at the patient in general for obvious symptoms such as abnormal color or tone of the patient's skin. The health-care provider then inspects each part of the body, looking for abnormalities in each area. She does this part of the inspection with her eyes only. The health-care provider makes notes about what she sees in this part of the process.

    Palpation

    • In this part of the procedure, the health-care provider uses his hands to inspect the patient. By touching the patient and applying light pressure, the health-care provider can ascertain certain conditions of the body. In palpation, he may press down on the skin with his fingertips or apply pressure to the patient's skin so the patient can tell him whether or not he feels discomfort in certain areas. He will note his findings and the patient's comments.

    Percussion

    • The health-care provider taps the patient's body sharply so she can hear how that area sounds. Sound helps the health-care provider determine if the patient is healthy or if there is possible damage in certain parts of the body. The health-care provider listens for sounds such as resonance, hyperresonance, tympany, dullness and flatness. Each of these sounds provides information that the health-care provider can include in her diagnosis.

    Auscultation

    • Here the health-care provider takes out her stethoscope and listens to the sounds the body makes in the heart, lungs and other areas. She holds the stethoscope tightly over the area she wishes to listen to in order to block out extraneous sounds. Once she determines the sound of each area, she is finished with the physical assessment and ready to move on to other necessary testing.

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