Author

Sama A. Bég

Degree Type

Honors Capstone Project

Date of Submission

Spring 5-1-2008

Capstone Advisor

Susan M. Wojcik

Honors Reader

William D. Grant

Capstone Major

Biology

Capstone College

Arts and Science

Audio/Visual Component

no

Capstone Prize Winner

no

Won Capstone Funding

no

Honors Categories

Sciences and Engineering

Subject Categories

Biology

Abstract

Annually a large number of patients seen in the emergency department are diagnosed with an ankle sprain. If not treated properly, these injuries can result in long term complications such as pain, swelling and instability. Appropriate patient discharge instructions using evidence based treatment principles can be utilized to avoid these complications. Many patients seen in the emergency department with a final diagnosis of ankle sprain receive x-rays to rule out a fracture, despite the development of the Ottawa Ankle Rules (OAR) to determine when x-rays are necessary. Use of the Ottawa Ankle Rules has been shown to decrease the number of necessary x-rays by 35%.

In this study, we conducted a retrospective chart review of patients discharged from theUniversityHospitalemergency department with a diagnosis of ankle sprain to determine: a) the quality and content of treatment and discharge instructions, b) the compliance with the Ottawa Ankle Rules for the determination of ordering an x-ray.

We found there to be inadequate documentation of the use of OAR in the Emergency department and that the discharge instructions given to patients were not at a level that would provide for the best recovery from the injury

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Included in

Biology Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.