Exam Must-knows: NCLEX Mnemonics

Studying for an exam isn’t really a pleasant experience. Spending sleepless nights burning candles and stressing on whether you have the chance to pass of not. You have to read and understand complicated concepts and memorize all those long topics, which may sometimes be impossible as we only have limited time to prepare. We feel so pressured that we have to cram all those thoughts in our head in so little time. Yes, you heard that right, so much to study in so little time.

In order to try to remember, aspiring professional nurses have devised strategies to help them pass the NCLEX exam as easy breezy as they can. Some may organize group studies as they believe that by discussing with a group, you may be able to expand your knowledge more, and by constantly familiarizing yourself with such terms, later on, you will eventually learn to memorize it. Some enroll in review centers to try to keep oriented with new updates happening in the nursing profession, and some of which may help them in acing their exams. However, doing so could be so expensive and not all people could afford the high tuition fees review centers nowadays require. Nonetheless, there is still another option left.

As said earlier, studying is hard, but memorizing everything could be much harder. Imagine all those information crammed up in your head matched with the feeling of being pressured and panicked. Instead of answering your exams well, you tend to get confused and forget all those you have reviewed. In order to help one get through with this important phase in their nursing careers which is the NCLEX, a set of mnemonics have been formulated. Below are some examples:

DO NOT delegate what you can EAT!

E – evaluate

A – assess

T – teach

Addisons= down, down down up down

Cushings= up up up down up

Addisons= hyponatremia, hypotension, decreased blood vol, hyperkalemia, hypoglycemia

Cushings= hypernatremia, hypertension, incrased blood vol, hypokalemia, hyperglycemia

No Pee, no K (do not give potassium without adequate urine output)

EleVate Veins; dAngle Arteries for better perfusion

A= appearance (color all pink, pink and blue, blue [pale])

P= pulse (>100, < 100, absent)

G= grimace (cough, grimace, no response)

A= activity (flexed, flaccid, limp)

R= respirations (strong cry, weak cry, absent)

TRANSMISSION-BASED PRECAUTIONS:

AIRBORNE

My – Measles

Chicken – Chicken Pox/Varicella

Hez – Herpez Zoster/Shingles

TB – Tuberculosis)

or try this…

MTV=Airborne

Measles

TB

Varicella-Chicken Pox/Herpes Zoster-Shingles

Private Room – negative pressure with 6-12 air exchanges/hr Mask, N95 for TB

DROPLET

think of SPIDERMAN!

S – sepsis

S – scarlet fever

S – streptococcal pharyngitis P – parvovirus B19

P – pneumonia

P – pertussis

I – influenza

D – diptheria (pharyngeal) E – epiglottitis

R – rubella

M – mumps

M – meningitis

M – mycoplasma or meningeal pneumonia

An – Adenovirus

Private Room or cohort Mask

CONTACT PRECAUTION

MRS.WEE

M – multidrug resistant organism

R – respiratory infection

S – skin infections *

W – wound infxn

E – enteric infxn – clostridium difficile E – eye infxn – conjunctivitis

SKIN INFECTIONS VCHIPS

V – varicella zoster

C – cutaneous diphtheria

H – herpes simplex

I – impetigo

P – pediculosis

S – scabies

There are still a lot of mnemonics you can find all around the internet, some you may even find in books. However, it doesn’t really matter which mnemonics you follow. You may even coin your own mnemonics, by doing such you can be more familiar with it and may be able to memorize it more effectively. First, you just have to make sure that your source is reliable. Then, you may push through with making your own. Passing exams like the NCLEX isn’t really as “near impossible” as it may seem, if you only find time to read, understand the concepts and strategize on how to study effectively, you may get a good chance of passing it, without even stressing much about it.

Source: http://allnurses.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8687&d=1310076980