Question

An established patient arrives 20 minutes early for his appointment. He is in obvious pain and discomfort and tells the medical assistant, "I can't sleep or eat and I can't go to work today."

1. Which of Maslow's stages most accurately describes this patient? -

2. What actions should the medical assistant take to assist this patient?

Answer 1

1.

Sleep and nutrition are the basic physiological needs.

So that 1st stage ( i.e on the base or bottom) of the Maslow's stage is most accurately describes this patient.

Maslow's stages describes the needs of human being arranged in hierarchy as per priority.

It is as below

1. Physiological needs: Food,water, air, shelter, sleep, clothing, elimination and other physiological needs
2. Safety and security needs: safety, security, employment
3. Love and affection need: relationships, friends
4. Esteem: prestige, feeling of accomplishment
5. Self actualization: achieving one's full potential

2. Medical assistant can assist the patient im the following way to reduce patient problem

• Collect medical history relevant to the patient problem
• Examine the cause for sleeping and eating difficulty
• If there is any sore throat which causes dysphagia, treat it
• Provide calm and quite environment to the patient while sleeping.
• Advice the patient to have warm bath, warm mlik at bed time. So that it facilitate sleep.
• Advice to take soft diet which is easy to swallow