Guillain-Barré Syndrome: Diagnosis (Nursing)

00:00 We just talked about the kind of clues and assessment data that a nurse would gather on their own.

00:06 These are things you would communicate to the healthcare team.

00:09 Now, were gonna look at specialized diagnostic testing.

00:13 This ones we're stepping up the game.

00:15 Now, the physician may suspect Guillain-Barré or they may just not have any idea where we're going, but this is a legitimate test.

00:24 This would be a logical next step. We'll take a look at the cerebrospinal fluid.

00:29 Okay. So we'll draw that from the spinal column, they'll get a sample.

00:34 But if it's been about 10 days from the onset of symptoms, this is what they might find.

00:39 They might find elevated cerebrospinal fluid protein without elevated cell count. Okay, that's key.

00:49 So kind of underlying that that's what we'd be looking for in a cerebrospinal fluid test.

00:55 Now you'll play a role as a nurse preparing your patient for this exam, explaining this to them along with the healthcare team.

01:02 But remember, it takes about 10 days for this to develop after the onset of symptoms.

01:07 So if the patient comes to you extra early, this test might not help with Guillain-Barré.

01:12 There's another test that they can do and they'll look for abnormal nerve conduction velocity findings.

01:18 So they might have some slow signal conduction going on.

01:22 So these are two tests that won't be performed by nurses, but the healthcare team will perform these to kinda help us give us more clues as to the diagnosis of Guillain-Barré.