Removal of the endotracheal tube, done for many patients in the PACU once they are awake enough to protect their own airway, is called extubation.
Missing Word
extubation
Extubation is the removal of an endotracheal tube. It is done once the patient breathes adequately and has protective airway reflexes; patients after extensive surgery may stay intubated and go to intensive care instead.
Category: PACU Recovery
Question 2
A patient lies rigidly still and calls the pain fine, yet grimaces and guards the incision when turning; a cultural value of stoicism, which treats outward signs of pain as weakness, may explain the mismatch.
Missing Word
stoicism
Stoicism is bearing pain or hardship without complaint. A patient who values it may underreport pain, so the nurse relies on nonverbal cues such as grimacing and guarding and asks about pain directly and respectfully.
Category: Postoperative Pain
Question 3
Unrelieved postoperative pain keeps the adrenal steroid stress hormone cortisol elevated, which weakens immunity, raises blood glucose and slows wound healing.
Missing Word
cortisol
Cortisol is the main glucocorticoid released in the stress response. In excess it impairs immune function, raises blood glucose and delays tissue repair, which is one reason effective pain control supports healing.
Category: Postoperative Pain
Question 4
When high blood pressure after surgery comes from fluid overload, the provider may order a loop or thiazide diuretic to increase urine output and remove the excess fluid.
Missing Word
diuretic
A diuretic increases the kidneys' output of water and sodium. Removing excess fluid lowers blood pressure caused by overload and helps prevent peripheral edema and lung congestion.
Category: Fluids and Hemodynamics
Question 5
To make coughing less painful after abdominal surgery, the nurse teaches the patient to hold a pillow firmly over the incision while coughing, a technique called splinting.
Missing Word
splinting
Splinting supports the incision with a pillow or folded blanket so the patient can cough and breathe deeply with less pain and less strain on the suture line. Effective coughing clears retained secretions and helps prevent lung complications such as atelectasis.
Category: Clot and Lung Complications
Question 6
Fever, crackles, chest pain and a cough producing purulent sputum a few days after surgery point to pneumonia, an infection that fills the alveoli with fluid and inflammatory cells.
Missing Word
pneumonia
Pneumonia after surgery often follows shallow breathing and retained secretions. Nursing care includes coughing and deep breathing exercises, raising the head of the bed, giving prescribed antibiotics and monitoring respiratory status.
Category: Clot and Lung Complications
Question 7
For an abdominal incision at risk of separating, the surgeon may order an abdominal binder, a wide elastic wrap fastened around the trunk to support the wound.
Missing Word
binder
An abdominal binder is a wide elastic support wrapped around the abdomen. It reduces strain on the incision and can be part of care when wound edges are at risk of separating.
Category: Wound Complications
Question 8
Heavy bleeding after surgery with falling blood pressure, a rising heart rate and dropping hemoglobin is called hemorrhage.
Missing Word
hemorrhage
Hemorrhage is excessive blood loss. After surgery it shows as hypotension, tachycardia, bleeding at the site and falling hemoglobin and hematocrit, and it can progress to shock without prompt treatment.
Category: Fluids and Hemodynamics
Question 9
A swollen, discolored collection of blood trapped in the tissue beneath an incision, which the nurse looks for when a patient becomes hypotensive, is a hematoma.
Missing Word
hematoma
A hematoma is a pocket of blood that has collected outside the vessels within tissue. Checking the surgical site for one helps the nurse find hidden bleeding as a cause of hypotension.
Category: Wound Complications
Question 10
Because embarrassment can inhibit urination, the nurse draws the curtain and closes the door to give a postoperative patient privacy while the patient tries to void.
Missing Word
privacy
Privacy reduces the anxiety and embarrassment that can inhibit urination. Along with positioning, hydration and an unhurried setting, it is a noninvasive measure tried before catheterization.
Category: Urinary Retention
Question 11
Applying firm finger pressure to the same body points used in acupuncture, but without needles, to relieve postoperative pain is called acupressure.
Missing Word
acupressure
Acupressure uses manual pressure on specific points rather than needles. It is a nonpharmacologic measure thought to ease pain by improving circulation to muscles, used alongside prescribed analgesics.
Category: Postoperative Pain
Question 12
Mobilization after surgery progresses from turning in bed to sitting up and then to ambulation, walking with or without help.
Missing Word
ambulation
Ambulation means walking. Getting the patient walking early helps prevent clots, atelectasis, pneumonia and ileus and speeds the return of strength.
Category: Clot and Lung Complications
Question 13
Gurgling respirations in a drowsy PACU patient mean secretions are pooling in the upper airway, and the nurse clears them by suctioning the mouth and throat.
Missing Word
suctioning
Suctioning removes secretions, blood or vomitus that a sedated patient cannot clear by coughing. The nurse then reassesses breath sounds and oxygen saturation to confirm that the airway is clear.
Category: PACU Recovery
Question 14
After anesthesia, food and fluids are withheld until the gag and swallow reflexes return, because swallowing without them invites aspiration, the entry of oral secretions or stomach contents into the lungs.
Missing Word
aspiration
Aspiration is the inhalation of food, fluid, secretions or vomitus into the lower airway, where it can cause airway obstruction and lung infection. Anesthesia and sedation blunt the protective reflexes, so oral intake starts only after they return, and keeping the head of the bed raised further lowers the risk.
Category: PACU Recovery
Question 15
When a separated abdominal incision opens far enough that loops of bowel protrude through it, the emergency is called evisceration, and the nurse covers the exposed organs with sterile saline-moistened dressings.
Missing Word
evisceration
Evisceration is the protrusion of abdominal organs through a wound that has come apart, a step beyond dehiscence, in which the edges separate without organs protruding. The nurse stays with the patient, keeps the organs covered with sterile dressings moistened with sterile saline so they do not dry out, positions the patient to reduce abdominal strain and calls the surgeon at once.
Category: Wound Complications