Practice Question
A nurse is performing chest physiotherapy on a client who has a respiratory infection. To help with the removal of the secretions of the respiratory system, which of the following techniques should the nurse use?
Answer Choices:
Correct Answer:
Vibration
Rationale:
🔷 Vibration is a key component of chest physiotherapy (CPT) and is used to help loosen secretions in the airways.
🔷 During vibration, the nurse applies rapid, fine shaking motions to the chest wall during exhalation, which helps move mucus toward larger airways.
🔷 Once secretions are mobilized, they can be more easily coughed or suctioned out.
🔷 This technique is especially useful in patients with respiratory infections who are having difficulty clearing mucus.
🔷 Therefore, vibration is the correct technique to enhance secretion removal during CPT.
High Fowler positioning.
🔷 High Fowler’s position improves lung expansion and helps with oxygenation, but it is not, by itself, a CPT technique.
🔷 While this position may make breathing easier and can help with drainage, it does not actively mobilize secretions like percussion or vibration.
🔷 It is supportive but does not replace specific airway clearance methods.
🔷 High Fowler’s is often used in respiratory distress, but that is not the focus of this question.
🔷 Thus, it is helpful for breathing but not the primary technique for secretion mobilization.
Auscultation.
🔷 Auscultation is an assessment technique, used to evaluate breath sounds and detect areas of decreased ventilation or adventitious sounds.
🔷 It does not directly help remove secretions from the lungs.
🔷 The nurse performs auscultation before and after CPT to assess effectiveness, but it is not the therapeutic intervention itself.
🔷 Its role is diagnostic, not airway-clearing.
🔷 Therefore, auscultation is important but does not constitute the CPT technique that mobilizes mucus.
Incentive spirometry.
🔷 Incentive spirometry promotes deep inspiration, alveolar expansion, and prevention of atelectasis.
🔷 It is mainly used after surgery or with immobility to improve lung expansion, not as a standard CPT technique.
🔷 Although it may indirectly help reduce infection risk by improving ventilation, it does not specifically loosen and mobilize secretions in the way vibration does.
🔷 It is a separate respiratory therapy intervention from percussion and vibration.
🔷 Therefore, it is not the best answer when the goal is secretion removal via CPT.
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This question is from Custom Concept Quiz 2 which contains 40 questions.
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Question Details
- Category: RN Nursing Exam(s)
- Subcategory: ATI Exam(s)
- Domain: RN Custom Exam(s)
- Answer Choices: 4