Question

Discuss components of a gastrointestinal assessment. Include assessment technique, normal findings, and 1 abnormal finding for each and what it can indicate. Include two scholarly references (journal articles, textbooks, NOT wikipedia).

Answer 1

When conducting a gastrointestinal assessment on the patient, both the subjective and objective data are needed. The components includes the following:

-Chief complaint

-Present health status

-Past health history

-Current lifestyle

-Psychosocial status

-Family history

-Physical assessment.

Gastrointestinal Assessment techniques includes inspection, auscultation, percussion and light palpation of the abdomen to identify visible abnormalities, bowel sounds and softness. These techniques should be used in an organized manner from least disturbing to most invasion to the patient.

Abnormal findings:

These include the following

-Obesity

-Air or gas

-Ascites

-Ovarian cyst

-Pregnancy

-Feces

-Tumor

Abnormal findings on Inspection:

-Umbilical hernia

-Epigastric hernia

-Incisional hernia

-Diastasis recti

Abnormal findings on palpation of enlarged organs such as

-enlarged liver

-enlarged nodular liver

-enlarged gallbladder

Enlarged spleen

-enlarged kidney

Aortic aneurysm

References:

Bailey H. Demonstrations of physical signs in clinical surgery.

Cope Z. The early diagnosis of the acute abdomen