Setting and Preparation
Position - patient should be supine and the bed or examination table should be flat. The patient's hands should remain at his/her sides with his/her head resting on a pillow. If the neck is flexed, the abdominal musculature becomes tensed and the examination made more difficult. Allowing the patient to bend his/her knees so that the soles of their feet rest on the table will also relax the abdomen.
Lighting - adjusted so that it is ideal.
Draping - patient should be exposed from the pubic symphysis below to the costal margin above - in women to just below the breasts. Some surgeons would describe an abdominal examination being from nipples to knees.
Physicians have had concern that giving patients pain medications during acute abdominal pain may hinder diagnosis and treatment. Separate systematic reviews by the Cochrane Collaboration and the Rational Clinical Examination refute this claim.
Read more about this topic: Abdominal Examination
Famous quotes containing the words setting and, setting and/or preparation:
“Teaching Black Studies, I find that students are quick to label a black person who has grown up in a predominantly white setting and attended similar schools as “not black enough.” ...Our concept of black experience has been too narrow and constricting.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“A fit abode for a poet. Stage setting at least correct.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Living each day as a preparation for the next is an exciting way to live. Looking forward to something is much more fun than looking back at something—and much more constructive. If we can prepare ourselves so that we never have to think, “Oh, if I had only known, if I had only been ready,” our lives can really be the great adventure we so passionately want them to be.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)