Pneumonia (2 CEU’s)

Pneumonia is an ancient disease, whose’s clinical picture was described 2,500 years ago by Hippocrates with symptoms of fever, pleuritic chest pain, productive cough, rales, and dyspnea. These classic symptoms still hold true today.

Pneumonia is an inflammation of the lungs commonly caused by bacteria, but can be caused by viruses, fungi, parasites and other infectious agents, in which the air sacs fill with pus and may become solid. Inflammation may affect one or both lungs. The term  pneumonia itself, however, includes other causes of inflammation of the lower respiratory air spaces, particularly the alveoli, such as acute or chronic eosinophilic pneumonia, cryptogenic organizing pneumonia, and usual interstitial pneumonia. Pneumonia can be further separated from infections limited to the trachea or large bronchi into those acquired in the community (community-acquired pneumonia) and those arising in institutional settings, with the second group being composed of hospital-acquired pneumonia, ventilator-associated pneumonia, and health care-associated pneumonia

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, the nurse assistant should be able to:

1. Outline the definition of pneumonia
2. List risk factors for pneumonia infection
3. Demonstrate an understanding of signs and symptoms of pneumonia
4. Discuss strategies for management of patients with pneumonia.
5. Identify potential complications of pneumonia in various patient populations, including infection with multidrug-resistant organisms.

Instructions for taking the course

To complete the course successfully, you must go through all the lessons below. You MUST mark each lesson as complete by clicking the MARK COMPLETE BUTTON. If you do not click the mark complete button, you will not be allowed to proceed to the next lesson. Please notice that all lessons have a minimum set amount of time that you are expected to spend on each lesson. You will not be allowed to Mark the Lesson Complete until the timer resets to zero; that is, until the minimum time set for the course has passed. For example if lesson A has an allocated minimum time of 10 minutes, you will have to wait 10 minutes before you can mark Lesson A complete. The Mark Complete button for lesson A will be grayed out and will not become active until 10 minutes are over.

WARNINGIf you forget to click the Mark Complete button done, you will be prompted to go back to that lesson again and have to wait till the allocated timed minutes resets to zero again before the Mark Complete button becomes active. After all lessons are completed and they are Marked Completed, you will then be allowed to take the post test. If you successfully pass the quiz, you will earn CEU’s for this course and you can proceed to print out your certificate.

LESSONS & QUIZ BELOW