Blood pressure greater than l60 on the top and l20 on the bottom

Pulse greater than l20

02 sats (oxygen saturation of less than 90%

Alarms that sound and no nurse comes immediately

Respiratory rate greater than 24 per minute

Watch for:

Pressure sores or red marks that don’t go away over a day or so in sacrum and/or buttocks and/or heels and/or ankles. Check the burn spots throughout the day.

Things to do:

Ask the therapist to show you how to do range of motion exercises and do them for all four limbs throughout the day. Once per shift.  You want to put all 4 limbs through full and complete passive range of motion.  Massage hands and feet and legs and arms which will keep contractures from developing.

Medications:

Ask what they are for.

Make sure they feed your loved one through their feeding tube consistently.  He or she will have loose stools with tube feeding so make sure his or her chucks (The blue pads under them) are changed when he or she has a BM as soon as possible.

Infection:

Ask if they grew a culture and when initial results come back (24 hours) and 48 -72 hours later, what grew and if antibiotics are specific to THAT infection.

If there is sudden onset of swelling of one leg, that can indicate a blood clot.

Watch to make sure if the patient stops producing urine

Make sure they change the patient’s position every two hours minimum, preferably every hour or so.

Consider a note taped near the patient:

From the family of Jane Doe:

ONLY POSITIVE COMMENTS PLEASE.  Even if Jane may be asleep she can still hear you and we ask you only speak of how well she’s doing etc.