General light palpation for tenderness
In the general light palpation for tenderness, the patient should be asked before palpation commences whether there are any tender parts of the abdomen. This region is palpated lastly during the first sweep as immediate pain will encourage the patient not to relax for the rest of the examination.
Assess the degree of tenderness:
- mild tenderness that just causes pain
- moderate tenderness that may cause the patients stomach muscles to tighten with pressing - guarding
- severe tenderness - also associated with guarding; also the sudden withdrawal of the manual pressure causes a sharp exacerbation of the pain; the latter is known as rebound or release tenderness
Related pages
Create an account to add page annotations
Annotations allow you to add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation. E.g. a website or number. This information will always show when you visit this page.