This practical, time-saving reference will help you improve your assessment skills and perform rapid, thorough examinations of your patients. Completely updated, with new illustrations and photographs, this guide covers basic physical examination techniques and how to conduct a health history. It's organized head-to-toe by body region - the way you assess your patients every day! Each assessment chapter consists of two easy-to-use sections: - Examination Steps and Findings describes normal and abnormal findings and their interpretations. - Exploring Chief Complaints focuses on symptoms and complaints and their probable causes. Priority Checklists review the most important steps to cover when examining patients. Normal Findings summarize characteristic findings and help nurses identify acceptable variations based on age, sex, and condition of the patient. Interpreting Abnormal Findings help nurses analyze abnormal findings and relate them to their causes. Action Stats tell nurses exactly what to do for a patient with a potentially life-threatening condition. Examination Tips provide practical advice to help nurses examine patients faster and more effectively. Disorder Close-Ups focus on the most common disorders encountered by nurses today and include characteristic findings and complications. Anatomy Reviews present detailed anatomical illustrations for quick reference or to teach patients. Practical, hands-on presentation makes this resource useful in all patient care settings. Introductory review chapter covers health history, equipment, examination techniques, and procedures. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step format encompasses all aspects of physical examination, including inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation. Content identifies chief complaints and provides interview questions and guidelines for a focused assessment. The text discusses individualizing the physical exam for patients with serious illnesses, pain, or handicaps. Updated content throughout reflects the latest information on assessment techniques, normal and abnormal findings, and the assessment of patients with specific diseases and disorders Lifespan Considerations help nurses individualize the examination for patients of different ages. Cultural Considerations provide information on variations in findings that may represent cultural anomalies. A chapter on documentation highlights key information to document during the initial assessment and presents guidelines for documenting assessment findings for selected medical conditions. New illustrations and photographs of normal anatomy and normal and abnormal assessment findings offer the reader a helpful visual aide. Key logos within text indicate special features for the user's easy reference. The addition of special features, like Interpreting Abnormal Findings, Examination Tips, and Disorder Close-Ups ensure that the reader has all the information needed to quickly and accurately assess a patient. New appendices such as Assessment Tools, Body Mass Index Calculation, and Normal Laboratory Values help make this book one of the most comprehensive resources of its kind.