Stroke

Today we are focusing on Strokes, or Brain attacks. This is one of those conditions that is so important for us nurses to know the signs and symptoms of, because your patient could have a stroke at any point. They could come into the ER with a suspected stroke, or they could be recovering on the med-surg unit, about to be discharged, and then have a stroke. So it can happen at any time, and we want to make sure we know what to look for. We also want to make sure we know what their baseline looks like, so we have something to compare any changes to. This is one reason why, when you’re in nursing school clinicals, your instructors will stress that you do a bedside shift report, or at least that you go into the patient’s room and do the physical assessment within the first hour of your shift starting. Because if you don’t go in there for four hours, and then when you finally do, they have slurred speech and limited arm movement, you’re not going to know if that’s what they were like before your shift, or if those are new changes.