Question

You are on the scene in the bad part of town for an unresponsive 18-year-old type 1 diabetic patient. his mother states that he is very noncompliant with his diabetes management and goes unresponsive often due to low blood sugar. after performing the primary assessment, you believe that this is the most likely cause of his unresponsiveness. however, after taking a capillary glucose reading you are surprised to see that the patient's sugar level is normal. how will you now determine the field impression?

Answer 1

The answer would be: Continue patient care by getting a complete SAMPLE history and perform a complete secondary assessment.

If the reading of glucose test is normal, then you can exclude hypoglycemia from the possible diagnosis. Because the patient is accompanied by his mother, you can ask a brief history to exclude other possible diagnosis and complete secondary assessment before further help comes. The information would be beneficial to the healthcare personnel that will comes for help.