The questions I would ask a patient would be:
What is your normal blood pressure? Have you ever been told that you have high blood pressure, or borderline high blood pressure?
Do you have diabetes? When was the last time you had your blood sugar (glucose) level checked and what was the result (Miller, 2019)?
A consideration I would include in a cardiovascular assessment would be asking the patient about their diet history (Miller, 2019) .
These questions are some of the most important questions to ask a patient, because even though the patient complains of no past or recent heart problems, the patient might have underlying health conditions that can ultimately affect the patients heart in the future. For example, the patient having an unhealthy fatty diet can cause the patient to have a high blood pressure due to fat build up in the arteries, and over time cause the arteries to work harder to move blood throughout the body. As a result, the patient will be prescribed a high blood pressure medication to control their blood pressure, but a lot of high blood pressure medications have a side effect of increasing the patients risk for falls. Another example would be asking the patient if he or she has ever had some form of diabetes. Asking the patient about their diet history is an important factor of a patients cardiovascular health and diabetes. If a patient has type 1 diabetes and is eating all the foods that they are not supposed to eat, then they are adding too much glucose to their body than they can handle, and can cause them to have an increased risk for diabetic peripheral neuropathy which can cause them to have an increased risk for falls, and too much glucose can also cause damage to the heart over a period of time.
Miller, C.A. (2019) Nursing for Wellness in Older Adults (8th ed.) Wolters Kluwer.
