Health Maintenance & Restoration

Maintaining and restoring patients health is the key responsibility for all the healthcare team including CNAs.  That is why the accuracy and proper documentation of all the information about the patients is so crucial. This includes recording vital signs, as well as measuring patients health and weight.

Vital signs are vital since they include the most important health signs like temperature, blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rate.

Paying close attention to these signs is crucial. Every age bracket has its own normal range for vital signs, so any deviation from thee would indicate an abnormality.

With careful observation, one can detect that a rise or fall of one’s vital signs can also change the results of other vital signs. A good example would be a client that has a fever. It is already expected that a rise of respiration will also result to a rise of pulse rate.

When a resident is admitted, procedures like weighing and measuring of height is done. A dramatic change in these stats needs to be reported so that they will be taken care of early.

Weighing may verify signs of obesity or malnutrition, while height taking can reflect signs of musculoskeletal problems. An advantage in having the weight and height in the admission is that it helps doctors to give the right dose of medicine to resident.

When getting important data such as height or weight, proper consideration such as removal of shoes and additional things that might give inaccuracy of measurement should be done.