Pain, Edema, Temperature and Tonicity

The Pain, Edema, Temperature and Tonicity findings box is show in figure 2. Two items, Pain and Tonicity, are critical as 2 aspects of the Medicare PART exam.

                   Figure 2

•      The lightning bolt Sis used to represent Pain.

•      The diamond T shows Edema or swelling.

•      As in chemistry and physics, the triangle U represents Temperature.

•      Musical tones V W (notes) identify muscle Tone. The notes with the flag up V show Hypertonicity. Notes with the flag down W are for Hypotonicity.

It is important to remember that these are the doctor’s clinical objective findings, NOT patient subjective complaints.