Medical assistants learn about vital signs and symptoms in school. They’re two different topics, yet they’re closely related. Together, they solve medical mysteries. Let’s explore how the two are linked.
What Are Symptoms?
Symptoms are physical manifestations of an illness. They’re something a patient feels like aches and pains. These are among the most common symptoms patients report to medical assistants:
Abdominal Pain
Abdominal pain is discomfort in the belly, below the ribs but above the pelvic bone. It can come from muscle, bone, organs, or the peritoneum, the lining surrounding the stomach, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and intestines. Viral gastroenteritis, appendicitis, food poisoning, constipation and diverticulitis are common causes of abdominal pain.
Anxiety
Anxiety is an overwhelming feeling of dread without an obvious cause. It can be secondary to a medical condition or classified as a primary emotional disorder. Millions of Americans suffer from social or generalized anxiety disorder.
Bloating
Bloating is a feeling of fullness in the abdomen. The result of fluid retention or gas, it’s a common symptom of gastritis, constipation, or food allergies.
Blurry Vision
Blurry vision is the loss of visual acuity affecting sharpness or fine detail. It can be caused by eye disorders, like nearsightedness, or systemic disorders such as hypertension.
Body Aches
Pain-related issues, such as body aches, are among patients’ top complaints. A body-wide soreness affecting most muscle groups, it’s associated with hundreds of diagnoses from influenza to arthritis.
Chills
Chills are abnormal feelings of coldness with shivering, usually not associated with the air temperature. Fever due to infection is a common cause.
Cough
Coughing is the rapid expulsion of air from the lungs, usually to clear the airways of mucus or foreign material. It’s a symptom of many disorders from pneumonia and allergies to heart failure and lung cancer.
Diarrhea
Diarrhea is a bowel movement with a soft or liquid consistency. Often accompanied by bloating or abdominal pain, a single bout is rarely concerning. However, persistent diarrhea can lead to malnutrition and dehydration. Common causes include food allergies, viruses, and autoimmune disorders like Crohn’s disease.
Dizziness
Dizziness is a lightheaded sensation. Patients describe it as feeling faint or woozy. Causes include dehydration, hypertension, viruses, and vestibular disorders.
Fainting
Fainting, or syncope, is a partial or complete loss of consciousness due to a temporary reduction in blood flow to the brain. Causes include heart disease, strokes, and stress.
Fatigue
Second only to pain as the most common medical complaint, fatigue is a source of concern for many patients. An overwhelming or unexpected feeling of tiredness, it may be due to depression, aging, hormonal imbalances, heart dysrhythmias, and infections.
Forgetfulness
Forgetfulness is a mild form of memory loss or inability to concentrate. It’s common but worrisome because it’s similar to dementia. A normal part of aging, it’s a symptom everyone experiences occasionally. Nonetheless, it requires follow-up. Forgetfulness can be caused by hormone disorders, cardiovascular disease, and depression.
Heartburn
Heartburn is a fiery feeling in the upper abdomen, chest, and neck. It’s often associated with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a disorder in which gastric juices flow backward through the esophagus.
However, the pain is similar to that of a heart attack, especially in women. It’s a symptom doctors don’t take lightly until serious causes have been ruled out.
Irregular Heartbeat
Perceived as a change in heart rhythm, irregular heartbeats take different forms. Described as a flutter or palpitation, it may be due to cardiovascular disease, electrolyte imbalances or emotional distress.
Itch
An itch is an uncomfortable skin sensation only sated by scratching. Itching can be localized or body wide. The causes range from allergies and dermatitis to hypothyroidism and autoimmune disorders like psoriasis.
Mood Swings
Mood swings are variations in emotion and temperament without an obvious trigger. Patients report emotional liability, rapid changes in mood from happy to sad or angry.
Mood swings can be due to emotional or behavioral disorders and many medical conditions, including depression, bipolar disorder, and premenstrual syndrome.
Nausea
Nausea is the urge to vomit. Another common symptom rooted in dozens of conditions from viruses and gallbladder disorders, it ranges from mild to severe. Mild nausea is rarely debilitating and often transient, it resolves after a few days. However, if it’s persistent, it can lead to malnutrition, dehydration, and weight loss.
Rash
Rash is a non-specific term for a skin irritation. Red, raised and often itchy, the cause can be elusive. Most are temporary, the result of an insect bite or contact with a substance to which the patient is sensitized. Certain rashes, such as a butterfly-shaped rash on the cheeks and nose, is associated with Lupus. A red or bluish pinpoint rash may be due to infection.
Shortness of Breath
Shortness of breath is the feeling that you’re not getting enough oxygen. Associated with a long list of serious conditions from asthma to pneumonia, it requires immediate medical attention.
Sleeplessness
Sleeplessness is not enough or poor-quality sleep. Patients may call it insomnia, but it’s often rooted in other conditions from hormonal disorders to sleep apnea. Occasional sleeplessness is normal, but follow-up is required if it persists.
Tremor
Tremor is shaking, often in the hands. Body-wide tremor can be a type of seizure, but most tremor is due to aging and conditions like Parkinson’s disease.
What Are the Vital Signs?
Vital signs are measurements of the body’s most essential functions. Obtained at each visit by a medical assistant, they reveal how well a patient’s basic physiological processes are working.
Doctors use the information to diagnose illness, calculate drug dosages and track patients’ long-term physical health. How vital signs change over time is as telling as a single reading.
Traditionally, there are four principal vital signs, temperature, pulse, blood pressure and respirations. Plus, three secondary vital signs, height, weight, and oxygen saturation:
Temperature
Body temperature changes in response to pain, stress, injury, infection, and medical conditions, such as hypothyroidism. A healthy adult body temperature falls between 97 and 99 °F.
You’ll measure it using one of several methods, the most common of which are oral, under the tongue, or temporal, near the temporal artery on the forehead. Since abnormal temperature readings can be both problematic and benign, doctors evaluate high or low readings in the context of other symptoms.
Pulse
Pulse is how many times the heart beats per minute. As the lower chambers of the heart pump freshly oxygenated blood into the circulatory system, the arteries nearest to the skin’s surface in the groin, neck and wrist expand and contract, causing a palpable pulsation.
The most efficient way to measure heart rate is to count how many pulses you feel in the radial artery over 15 seconds. Multiply the results by four to get the per-minute rate. A healthy adult’s pulse is 60-100 beats per minute, but it can be higher or lower based on physical conditioning. Major fluctuations, however, usually indicate illness.
The character of the pulse is as meaningful as the rate. You’ll note in the chart whether it feels strong, weak, or irregular. An abnormal or unstable heart rate points to conditions from thyroid disease and infection to problems with the heart’s electrical system and reactions to medication.
Respirations
The average respiratory rate is 12-16 breaths per minute. Measured by watching the patient’s chest rise and fall, you’ll take it without telling the patient because knowing can cause unintentional changes.
Increases in respiratory rate can indicate an infection, lung disease and heart conditions. A low rate can be normal, the result of extreme physical conditioning. Combined with a loss of consciousness, it suggests a drug overdose.
Blood Pressure
Blood pressure (BP) is the pressure created against the arterial walls as blood is pumped from the heart. It’s reported as systolic pressure over the diastolic pressure to reflect the contraction and relaxation of the heart muscle.
Recorded in millimeters of mercury, referring to changes in the column of mercury in a sphygmomanometer, you’ll take it using a manual or digital meter on the upper arm. Normal adult blood pressure is in the 120/80 to 129/89 range.
Height
Height is an essential measurement for two reasons. The loss of an inch or more signals significant bone loss due to osteoporosis. Occasional bone density testing is recommended for women over 65.
Height is also one of the two measurements used to determine a patient’s Body Mass Index (BMI). A better way of measuring body size than weight alone, it’s used to calculate clinical risk factors for diabetes and heart disease and dosages for select medications.
Weight
Weight is the second of two measurements used to determine BMI. However, it has more clinical significance than height. For people with heart failure, for example, gaining as little as two pounds means they’re retaining fluid. It’s a serious issue treated with medication.
Peripheral Oxygen Saturation (SpO2)
SpO2 is the concentration of hemoglobin in the blood. It tells doctors how well the cardiopulmonary system is working. Low oxygen saturation is associated with lung disease, heart failure, and severe infections. Checked with a fingertip pulse oximeter, readings above 90 percent are normal, but 94 percent and above is desirable.
What’s the Difference Between Vital Signs and Symptoms?
Symptoms are subjective signs of illness as reported by the patient. It’s usually the reason why they go to the doctor. Vital signs are objective measurements that help doctors evaluate symptoms. They point them in the right direction as they narrow down potential diagnoses.
For example, a patient with no fever who has chills and fatigue may have a metabolic condition like hypothyroidism for which the physician would order blood tests. Someone with the same symptoms and an elevated body temperature likely may have a bacterial infection. A high pulse, common in infectious diseases, supports that diagnosis. In this case, the first-line treatment is antibiotics.
The importance of vital signs can’t be overstated. They’re critical pieces of a clinical puzzle that starts with symptoms and ends with a treatable diagnosis.
Final Thoughts
Doctors rely on both symptoms and vital signs to guide their decisions. Medical assistants help decode the mysteries. As a medical assistant you can support doctors in identifying symptoms and taking vital signs.
Want to Learn More?
Meridian College offers hands–on Medical Assistant training from experienced school faculty who know how to prepare you for the daily challenges you’ll face on the job. From assisting doctors with patients to important administrative tasks, our experienced Medical Assistant program teachers will train you for a rewarding new career.
In addition to receiving training from school instructors with real-world experience, you will also complete a school externship in a physician’s office, clinic, or related healthcare facility under the supervision of a physician, nurse, or health services professional to further develop your skills.
Contact Meridian College today to learn more about becoming a medical assistant.