NCLEX words

Leaving clients in your care without proper notice or a handoff to another qualified caregiver.

Airway, breathing and circulation: a way of ranking a client's needs in that order.

Being answerable for your own decisions, actions and the results of the care you give or hand to others.

Listening with full attention to what a person says and means, and showing them you have understood.

The basic self-care tasks of everyday life, such as bathing, dressing, eating, toileting and moving about.

How ill a client is and how much nursing care they need; in an eye exam, how sharply a person sees.

A change that helps a person or the body adjust to new conditions or stress.

Helping a person adjust or manage, such as tools made easier to use or healthy ways of coping.

How closely a client follows a treatment plan they have agreed to, such as taking medicines as prescribed.

A change made to fit a new situation, such as changing a dose, a position or a way of living.

The process of a client entering a hospital or other care setting to receive care.

Assessment, Diagnosis, Outcomes identification, Planning, Implementation, Evaluation: a memory aid for the steps of the nursing process.

A legal document in which a person states their wishes for medical care, for a time when they cannot speak for themselves.

An unwanted and harmful effect of a drug or treatment given at a normal dose.

To speak up and act for a client's rights, safety and wishes; also, a person who does this.

Relating to feelings, emotions or mood.

Leaving a hospital or refusing care when the health care team advises staying or continuing treatment.

Infection control steps, used with standard precautions, for germs that spread through tiny particles that stay in the air.

The spread of germs in tiny particles that stay floating in the air and can travel across a room or farther.

Awake and aware, and able to say correctly who they are, where they are and when it is.

To make something, such as pain or a symptom, less severe or easier to bear.

To walk, or to help a client walk.

To study information closely, piece by piece, to understand what it means.

The second step of the NCSBN Clinical Judgment Measurement Model: linking the client's findings to what they could mean.

Teaching that prepares a person or family for what to expect at the next stage, before it happens.

Safety steps that keep food, fluid, saliva or stomach contents from going into the airway and lungs.

In law, a threat or act that makes a person afraid they are about to be touched in a harmful or unwanted way.

To gather information about a client by looking, listening, asking, measuring and examining.

To give a staff member the care of a client, or tasks that are already part of that person's usual job and allowed by their license.

Equipment that helps a person move, do daily tasks or communicate more safely and on their own, such as a cane, walker or grab bar.

A portable device that checks the heart rhythm through pads on the chest and gives an electric shock if one is needed.

A person's right to make their own choices about their body and their care.

A starting measurement or the client's usual state, used to compare later findings against.

The first emergency care for someone whose heart or breathing has stopped or is failing: CPR, AED use and relief of choking.

Care that follows a set procedure, needs little change and brings a predictable response from the client.

A small bed for a newborn baby.

In law, touching a person on purpose without their consent.

An order that the client stays in bed, with any allowed activity spelled out by the provider.

Unable to get out of bed.

The ethical principle of doing good and acting in the client's best interest.

Having to do with both sides of the body.

An informal short form of bilirubin, as in "bili level" or "bili lights."

Safety steps that protect a client who bleeds easily from injury and bleeding.

Using the body in a safe, efficient way when lifting, moving and carrying, to prevent injury.

A place where a bone lies close under the skin with little fat or muscle over it, such as the heel or tailbone.

A slow collection of something in one place over time.

Compressions, airway, breathing: the order of steps the American Heart Association teaches for CPR.

Emergency chest compressions, with or without rescue breaths, to keep blood flowing when the heart has stopped.

A person who looks after someone who needs help, such as a family member, friend or paid helper.

The coordination of a client's care and services across settings and providers by one assigned professional.