Assessment is a physical act before it is a cognitive one, and every later step is corrupted by bad data. Build the examination sequence for a body region and find out whether you remembered the abdominal exception — then enter a full set of vital signs and read the interpretation against that patient’s own age band.
Choose the region you are about to examine
Click the techniques in the order you would perform them
Remember: inspection comes first everywhere because it is the only technique that does not touch the patient and therefore cannot change what the next technique measures.
Who is this patient?
Or load a patient
Sequence check
Why the abdomen is different
Normal bowel sounds are 5 to 30 per minute and irregular. Before you chart bowel sounds as absent, you must listen for a full five minutes in each quadrant. Palpating first mechanically stimulates peristalsis — you would then be charting sounds you created.