Pediatric Assessment

Pediatric Assessment Report Assessment techniques need to be modified to accommodate pediatric patients at different developmental stages. For infant patients, you will want to start the assessment with less invasive, quiet procedures like vitals and heart, lung, and bowel sounds. You may also want to consider performing procedures in the parent's lap for security and controlling mobility in older infants (6-12 months). Younger infants should be placed on padded exam tables. Always remember to keep the parent close and within infant's range of vision. Infants are also soothed by calming voices, warm hands, eye contact, and smiling faces. When assessing preschooler-aged children, one should consider using some of the similar techniques
Address questions more directly to patient over parent, and explain procedures in more concrete terms than the younger children. The child should be sitting or lying on the exam table. Offer to examine older children (ages 11-12) without parent present. Break the ice with small talk about school, family, friends, sports, or music. Progress through the exam from head to toe, as with an adult. Medical diagrams and teaching dolls are helpful techniques as well as eliciting active participation from the child in the history, exam, and care
In lab and clinical we have not yet had exposure to pediatric patients and have, therefore, not had to be concerned with any special considerations that we may need when assessing them. The information I learned in this report was extremely helpful and pertinent because it exposed me to elements I have not encountered prior. I do not have much experience with children and found the tips and adjustments for assessing the pediatric patient new and useful. I don't think I would have considered many of the adjustments on my own, especially considering my lack of prior exposure to children of these age