The nurse caring for a 78-year-old male client recovering from hip rep

The nurse caring for a 78-year-old male client recovering from hip replacement surgery is as-sessing for signs of improvement of the client’s activity tolerance. The nurse determined a base-line for ongoing assessments by:

1. Determining how much time it takes the client to recover from an activity
2. Assessing how much the client can do at one time
3. Determining the level of pain experienced by the client during the activity
4. Asking the client how much the client feels like doing

ANSWER

ANS: 1
When the client experiences decreased activity tolerance, carefully assess how much time the client needs to recover. Decreasing recovery time indicates improving activity tolerance. Pain should not be an assessment of activity tolerance. Asking the client how much he feels like doing before an activity will not tell the nurse if he is improving over time. The client may be able to do more (or less) than he thinks he is capable of doing before an activity.