Diagnosis and Assessment Tools

Diagnosis and assessments of patients utilize many types of tools. Some of these tools are physical tools that can provide accurate data. Other tools are charts or information-gathering strategies that help the health care worker get a complete picture of the patient and the patient's needs. A diagnosis actually utilizes assessments as tools to obtain the proper conclusion ending in a care path for the patient.

Hardware Tools

• A good sense of how your body is doing can be achieved by measuring your vital signs. This requires a stethoscope to listen to your heart and breathing sounds, a blood-pressure cuff to determine the pressure inside your vessels and a thermometer to read your temperature. This gives a nurse and doctor a basic sense of how you are doing. Other tools can also be used such as an EKG machine or an X-ray. These allow for a more thorough and literal picture of what is going on inside your body. Scopes are also used to look inside your ears, nose, throat and private areas.

Visual Tools

• Nurses must provide an assessment by looking at you and determining what might be out of place. Your coloring can clue the nurse in to a problem. By pressing on your fingers and seeing how long it takes for the blood to "pink" the area back up can determine if you are having circulation issues. The print out from X-rays, EKGs, stress tests, CAT scans and MRIs also provide the medical professionals with a visual image of what is going on. MRIs can show what the inside of your soft tissue looks like, showing growths or abnormalities. EKGs showcase how the electrical current in your heart is working. An X-ray prints an actual image of your bones so the doctor can look for fractures or weaknesses.

Vocal Tools

• Asking the right questions can mean the difference between a correct diagnosis and a wrong diagnosis. Nurses are trained to get a complete patient history. This allows the nurse to put together a complete picture not only of the current problem but also how the problem might have developed. This question session gives a nurse a sense of your pain level, the origin of the injury, a sense of the urgency and an overall feeling about your circumstance. Your inability to respond can add to the diagnosis and point to something like a brain injury. The verbal questioning can be supplemented with a written statement and for children a pain management chart so the nurse fully understands where you are coming from.

Diagnosis or End Assessment

• The doctor and nurse work together to put the assessments together to come up with a diagnosis. The diagnosis states the overall problem based on all of the information collected during the exam. The diagnosis takes into account all the data and gives you an overall answer as to what is wrong. Nurses and doctors take this a step further by coming up with the best solution to fix the problem diagnosis. This could include an intervention such as a cast, a change in diet, physical therapy or drugs and fluids.