Nursing Assignment on COPD Patient Assessment

Running Head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Notes

NURSING CARE1
Introduction
Mary Montgomery is a 78-year-old woman suffering from severe chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease (COPD) and cigarette smoking history. Upon moderate exertion, she had
become more and more breathless, to the extent that she could barely dress herself. She had
struggled at home to perform simple daily tasks and relied heavily on her husband for
support. She was taken to a COPD aggravated hospital (Suzuki et al., 2014).
When she was admitted to the hospital after her admission she had dusky-colored face
and bluish lips appeared soft. She had a quiet air, but she worked at rest. She had minimized
symmetrical movement of the heart, used motivating accessory muscles and improved
expiratory efforts. Her respiratory rate was 20 breaths per minute and oxygen saturation for 2
L of oxygen was 92 percent. As she got up to go to the toilet off oxygen, with subsequent
tachypnoea, tachycardia, and central cyanosis her saturation fell to 60 percent.
Explanation of data
Evaluation is the first step in the process of nursing. Assessment requires structured
data collection, validation, coordination, analysis, and documentation for health care
professionals to use. Assessment has the aim to create a database on the physical and
emotional well-being, mental functioning, social relationships, and spiritual state of a client.
Subjective details are customer-specific information like the symptoms, including emotions,
expectations, and questions gathered through interviews. Observable data and observable
information or signs are collected by analysis, physical examination, laboratory and
diagnostic testing are objective data (Demant et al., 2015).
Objective data is the knowledge in which the nurses we can use their senses to gather.
It is either an observation or a calculation. Temperature exemplifies objective data perfectly.
Using a thermometer, a person's temperature can be determined. On the other hand,

NURSING CARE2
subjective data is what the patient tells the patient. Here the nurses cannot use their senses or
gather cues to diagnose the patient. For instance, pain is a subjective data (Demant et al.,
2015).
Client’s assessment data
The concept of subjective and objective data can be implied on the case study. The
pain that was experienced by Mary was a subjective data that the nurse was not able to collect
through her senses. The other subjective data are the feelings and emotions of Mary that
cannot be verified by the nurse (Demant et al., 2015). Mary finds it difficult to walk and
needs her husband’s assistance to carry out the daily activities. She also used to feel
breathless after doing minimal work. All these include the subjective data that the nurse was
unable to measure or recheck.
The objective data that has been collected by the nurse on the physical examination of
Mary includes the fact that she had lower movement of the chest that was supported by the
accessory inspiratory rate and the increased amount of expiratory rate. The nurse also
measured the respiratory rate of the patient that highlighted the fact that the rate was 20
breaths per minute (Demant et al., 2015). The oxygen saturation was 92% on 2 L of oxygen.
When she got up to go to toilet off oxygen, her saturation dropped to 60% with
associated tachypnoea, tachycardia, and central cyanosis. All these assessments showed that
the patient might be suffering from cardiovascular disorder as she already has a history of
smoking. She can also have certain skin problems as she had pale face and bluish lips. She
can also suffer from respiratory problems as she had difficulty in breathing and she used to
feel exhaustion after minimal work or exercise (Almagro et al., 2014).