Exemplars 18.2, 3, & 5: Cataracts, Eye Injuries, and Macular Degeneration

Your grandmother comes to you one day and informs you that her doctor diagnosed her with cataracts. She didn't ask what those were because she knew the doctor would give her "smart person jargon". So she asks you what cataracts are. Select the correct teaching about cataracts that you can give to your grandmother

Select the risk factors for cataracts.

Which of the following would you usually NOT see when assessing a patient with age-related cataracts?

You have been tasked with procuring informed consent and teaching a patient about an extracapsular extraction for her bilateral cataracts. Which of the following statements made by the patient shows that more teaching is needed?

Your patient is scheduled to undergo surgery to fix her cataracts. You want to make sure your patient really understands her preoperative and postoperative instructions. Select correct teaching you can give to this patient.

You are providing teaching about eye injuries to a group of individuals at a community center. These individuals are from a wide array of careers; you know that most of these people are only here because their workplace is requiring them to be here. Which of the following statements made by a person in the audience shows that more teaching may be needed?

You have a young male patient presenting with intense pain and redness, light sensitivity, and tearing that began not long after cleaning out his father's attic. What type of eye injury might this person have?

You have a patient presenting to the ER with a contact lens dried into his eye. He's in intense pain and looks like he's been crying. He's also complaining about how bright the hospital lights are. Select appropriate interventions to enact for this patient.

Burns from alkaline substances are particularly serious.

You have a patient in the emergency room complaining of acute vision loss in her eyes, accompanied by intense pain. Her eyelids are swollen and her conjunctiva is red and edematous. Her entire eye appears milky. She reports to you that she works as a housekeeper. Which eye injury might this patient have?

What interventions might you enact for a patient suffering from a burn in one eye?

When irrigating the eye of a patient with a burn, you'll want to continue irrigation until the pH of the eye is 7.2-7.4

You are giving a lecture to employees at a chemical plant following a horrific incident with one of their coworkers. Which of the following statements made by an employee shows that more teaching is needed?

An individual comes into your emergency room with a fishing hook stuck in his eye. You can visualize where the hook went into the eye and where it comes out of the eye. This person came to the ER immediately after the hook got stuck in the eye, but informs you that the vision in that eye has been gradually declining. You can see blood pooling at the bottom of the eye. Which eye injury does this individual have?

Select the proper interventions you can enact for a patient with a small staple from a stapler gun embedded into the eye.

You have a patient in your emergency room following a car crash. Her right eye is black, and she is complaining of double vision and "seeing red". She is reporting 8/10 pain in the affected eye, with the pain worsening when she looks up. Whereas she reportedly had 20/20 vision before the accident, now she cannot read the sign 20 feet in front of her in the ER. Her eye appears sunken. What type of eye injury does this person have?

What interventions might you enact for a patient with blunt trauma andto the eye following a particularly brutal boxing match?

You have an elderly female at your urgent care complaining of "vision problems". Her vision in her right eye is blurry, as if she's "had a curtain drawn across" her vision, but she can still see floaters and flashes of light. She reports that her vision in that eye has been steadily decreasing since she woke up that morning. She does not report any prior eye trauma. What eye injury might this patient have?

If a patient is experiencing a retinal detachment, positioning cannot help him or her.

Your grandmother is telling you about one of her friends. She said that this friend has macular degeneration and told her (jokingly) that because she's old, she might be next. Since this individual is a friend, your grandmother wants to know what this disorder is and how she can help her friend. Select the statements that are correct.