A teenage patient is brought to your hospital by her parents. The patient exhibits unusual behaviors, including illogical thought processes and strange combinations of words that you do not understand. She is wearing dirty clothes and has body odor. The patient also appears to carry on a conversation with a person who is not seen by you. Your first priority for this patient is:

A teenage patient is brought to your hospital by her parents. The patient exhibits unusual behaviors, including illogical thought processes and strange combinations of words that you do not understand. She is wearing dirty clothes and has body odor. The patient also appears to carry on a conversation with a person who is not seen by you. Your first priority for this patient is:

You are one of the nurses monitoring the dining room during dinner. A male patient who has schizophrenia asks a table mate to please pass the pepper. When the table mate does so, the first patient throws the pepper shaker at you. He or she screams, 'Now look what youve done! There are spiders all over my food! I cant eat this! Get the spiders out of there!' Your best response is:

Your patient describes feeling spiders crawling on his skin rather than seeing spiders. This is an example of a hallucination.

Antipsychotics are used to treat schizophrenia and other acute psychotic behavior. Typical antipsychotic agents treat these symptoms :

Your patient is diagnosed with delirium. He is awake most of the night and becomes increasingly confused. Which is the best initial intervention?