Sample EMT Cardiology & Resuscitation Quiz

Your patient is complaining of severe chest pain with respiratory distress. He is alert but somewhat confused. His skin is pale, cool, and diaphoretic. His blood pressure is 72/44 mmHg, pulse rate of 120 beats per minute, and his respirations are 24 per minute and shallow. What is the priority treatment for this patient?

Cardiac chest pain is usually felt in the jaw and the left arm. This is known as:

A 75-year-old male patient was working in his front yard when he suddenly collapsed. Upon your arrival 7 minutes after collapse, he was found pulseless and apneic on the ground. He has a history of unstable angina.

What is your initial treatment for this patient?

Which of the following is the correct sequence for using an AED on an unresponsive, pulseless patient who has been in cardiac arrest for 1-2 minutes?

Your 68-year-old male patient complains of a constant, throbbing abdominal pain around his umbilicus with radiation to his back. His posterior tibial and dorsalis pedal pulses are absent. His blood pressure is 168/74 mm Hg in his left arm and 166/72 in his right arm. His radial pulse is 108 beats per minute and strong in his right and left arms. His abdomen is soft and tender around the umbilical area, with no pulsatile mass noted. His medical problems include atherosclerosis and chronic bronchitis.

What condition would you most likely suspect?

You have responded to a nursing home for a 76-year-old female patient who is cyanotic. Her respiratory rate is 26 per minute with adequate tidal volume. Cyanosis and an increase in respiratory rate were noticed approximately five minutes before the nurse requested an ambulance. History reveals deep vein thrombosis and severe Alzheimer s disease.

The patient’s eyes open spontaneously; however, she does not speak. The attending nurse states that her mental status has been unchanged from her normal state. Her lungs are clear and equal bilaterally. Her blood pressure is 142/88 mm Hg with a pulse rate of 86 beats per minute.

Which of the following choices represents the best initial treatment?

Which medication may a physician prescribe for a patient to take regularly to help prevent a myocardial infarction?

You are called to a nursing home for a patient with black, tarry stools. She is conscious but confused. The staff at the nursing home tell you that this mental status is normal for her due to her Alzheimer’s disease. Her skin is warm and dry. Her mucous membranes are dry and ashen.

Her blood pressure is 98/62 mm Hg, and her radial pulse is 114 beats per minute. Her respiratory rate is 16 per minute. Upon assessing your patient, she vomits a substance that looks like coffee grounds.

What condition is this patient most likely suffering from?

You are treating a 49-year-old patient who complains of intense pain between his shoulder blades radiating to his lower back. The pain began 10 minutes before your arrival while he was eating and has been constant. He rates the pain as a 10 out of 10 and describes it as a sharp, tearing pain.

The patient’s blood pressure is 130/76 mm Hg in the right arm and 78/48 mm Hg in the left arm, radial pulse in his right arm is 98 beats per minute and regular, and respiratory rate is 20 per minute and non-labored. He has no significant past medical history.

What condition would you most likely suspect?

Your 59-year-old female patient presents with chest pain and dyspnea. She states that the discomfort has been present for about an hour and started after carrying the laundry upstairs. She describes her pain as dull and rates it at 6/10.

She denies any radiation of the pain and says it gets worse on exertion. Your patient has a blood pressure of 156/90, a heart rate of 108, and a respiratory rate of 20.

What would be your initial diagnostic impression for this patient?