Chest Pain
Essays

Chest pain is one of the most common reasons people call for or visit the Emergency Room for help. Heart attack education has brought to light the urgency of seeking immediate medical treatment if one suspects they are having heart issues. However, chest pain does not always signal a heart attack, and may be totally unrelated to issues with the cardiovascular system. Often no clear reason for such pain presents itself during examination, but understanding the perception and pain experience can help medical professionals understand different experiences that lead to patient panic about chest pain.

When a patient with a history of COPD presents with chest pains and respiratory difficulty, the attending caregivers must first prioritize treatment problems. The case here denotes the prioritization of treatment issues for a case study on an 82 year old man. Treatment problems include activity intolerance, airway blockage and pain management. The discussion offers treatment strategies for each of these issues.

1. Subjective Patient’s chief complaint: A man aged 69 comes to the emergency room with a sharp pain to his chest’s left side, lasting between 30 and 40 mins and then subsiding. History of present illness: The pain has…