Practice Question
The nurse notes documentation that a child with meningitis is exhibiting a positive Kernig's sign. Which observation is a characteristic of this sign?
Answer Choices:
Correct Answer:
The child is not able to extend the leg when the thigh is flexed anteriorly at the hip
Rationale:
🔹 Kernig’s sign is a diagnostic indicator of meningeal irritation, such as in bacterial meningitis, where inflammation leads to nerve root stretching pain.
🔹 The test involves flexing the child’s hip and then extending the knee, which elicits pain or resistance if positive, due to inflamed meninges and spinal nerves.
🔹 This sign is more reliably assessed in older children and adolescents, not infants, and helps differentiate meningitis from other causes of fever.
🔹 A positive Kernig’s sign suggests the presence of subarachnoid inflammation, requiring urgent antibiotic therapy to prevent neurologic damage.
🔹 Its presence along with Brudzinski’s sign and signs of increased intracranial pressure often confirms a clinical diagnosis of meningitis pending CSF analysis.
Want to practice more questions like this?
This question is from ATI LPN Pediatric Exam which contains 51 questions.
More Questions from This Exam
A nurse is caring for an adolescent following the application of a plaster cast for a fractured right tibia. Which of the following actions should the nurse take?
Answer Choices:
A nurse enters a school age child's room to administer morning medications and finds the client sitting in a chair having a seizure. After lowering the client to the floor, which of the following actions should the nurse take first?
Answer Choices:
The nurse is planning to teach parents about prevention of Reye's syndrome. What information would the nurse include in this teaching?
Answer Choices:
The nurse is caring for a child recently diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The parents of the child ask the nurse about the disorder. The nurse bases the response to the parents on the understanding that cerebral palsy is best described by which statement?
Answer Choices:
Question Details
- Category: LPN Nursing Exam(s)
- Subcategory: LPN ATI Exams
- Domain: Pediatrics
- Answer Choices: 4