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The comeyehealth logo appears in Community Eye Health, 26(83): 56 (2013).
PMPMID: 24421579; CID: PMC3864059
How to take a patient's temperature and document it
Dianne Pickering
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Dianne Pickering
Every patient has to have their level of fitness evaluated before they can have surgery. It's critical to take the patient's temperature and document it as part of this assessment.
This is due to two factors:
A fever that you can treat at home with over-the-counter medications, rest, and fluids may be manageable. However, a patient with a high fever might require medical care.
A fever can also be referred to as elevated temperature, pyrexia, or hyperthermia. It's a condition where the body temperature rises, usually in response to a sickness (Trusted Source). Moreover, vaccinations and sunburns can cause fevers.
Fever may tend to strike more frequently in people with weakened immune systems than in healthy people.
Usually transient, fevers resolve on their own. Severe fevers, however, may be a medical emergency and a sign of a dangerous underlying illness.
This article explains how to determine the intensity of a fever and how to treat one at home. Ways to reduce a fever
To lower a fever that you or someone you're caring for is experiencing, take the following actions:
Remain in bed and take it easy.
To stay hydrated and replace lost fluids, drink lots of water.
To lower fever, take over-the-counter drugs like acetaminophen.
Unless you have the chills, stay cool by taking off extra blankets and layers of clothing.
Stay away from people until the fever goes down.
However, emergency care might be required if the fever is severe or persistent.
Additional signs and symptoms
The symptoms of fevers are not universal, nor are they. How you treat a fever depends on your symptoms and comfort level. You might feel any of the following symptoms if you have a fever:
fragility
dizziness
appetite decline
headache, aches in the muscles
It offers the first recording, or "baseline."
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