Week 5 Discussion Board Prompts – Musculoskeletal
- Susan is a 30-year-old registered nurse who works in transitional care. She presents to employee health stating, “My back is killing me. I was helping to transfer a patient and he moved. I thought he was going to fall, so I twisted around to grab onto him and wrenched my back. The pain is terrible, and I can barely walk.” Susan is a healthy young adult, married with a 5-year old. daughter. She has no significant family history. Susan has a past medical history of fractured coccyx as a teenager when she fell during cheerleading practice; no sequelae. She has smoked one-half pack of cigarettes a day since age 15 but is trying to quit. Current medicines include medroxyprogesterone acetate (Depo Provera) injection for birth control every 13 weeks. She is supposed to take calcium, but states that she “always forgets, and it constipates me anyway.” Susan denies any change in bowel/bladder habits.
- Mary is a 70-year-old widow with a history of osteoarthritis. She has been self-medicating with over-the-counter acetaminophen, either extra strength (500 mg/tablet) or arthritis strength (650mg/tablet) for over a year now. In addition to osteoarthritis, she also has osteoporosis and gastroesophageal reflux. She presents with the complaint of backache and right knee pain, aggravated by climbing stairs. She describes her knee pain as 8 on a scale of 1 to 10: “I can stand the back pain, but the knee is awful.” She lives alone but has two supportive daughters nearby. They take her shopping and help with housework. On good days, she goes to the senior center for lunch and socialization. She was doing exercises at the Senior Center but stopped due to her knee pain. She does not smoke or drink alcohol, except at birthday parties and celebrations. She denies any medication, food, or environmental allergies. In addition to the acetaminophen, medications include calcium with vitamin D, Protonix (pantoprazole), and an annual intravenous infusion of Reclast (zoledronic acid). She also has been taking a dietary supplement of glucosamine/chondroitin for 3 months. She recently had a complete physical examination with electrocardiogram and laboratory tests and was told that everything was “normal.”
- Linda is a 45-year-old female who returns to the office four weeks after a slip and fall at home. Initially, she had some mild-to-moderate soreness that was alleviated with heat and occasional Aleve. She now presents with pain across her lower back, pain with sitting and standing, and radiation of pain and numbness through her right buttock and down through her right thigh. She is taking Aleve twice daily and Tylenol every eight hours with moderate relief of pain, but it doesn’t help with the numbness. The pain wakes her at night. There has been no change in her bladder or bowel habits.
