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Question

how can you tell if someone is sleeping or comatose?


Sent to Health Experts August 16, 2006 2:20 a.m.

I am a new nurse I graduated in May of 2006 I got my temporary license in June 2006. I work in a nursing home. today one of my patients was unresponsive to voice or shake she moaned a little bit but she never really responded i thought that she was just sedated and sleep. I went back to check on her about 2 hours later and she was still unresponsive so i consulted another lpn on duty and finally we decided to send the resident out to the doctor. my question is did I wait too long before I decided to call the doctor and send her to the hospital?

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Answer
August 16, 2006 2:30 a.m. (9 minutes and 30 seconds later)
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Often elderly patients are deaf or have difficulty hearing. Also, they have problems with peripheral neuropathy so they don't feel it sometimes if you touch them so that it is usually necessary to feel their radial, apical, or carotid pulse to see if they are just sleeping or if they are in a coma, or dead.

You sent the resident to the doctor, which was the right thing to do.

The practice of medicine involves constant education. The more experience you get in the real world working with patients, then the better nurse you can be for your patients.



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