Check your patient's ability to inhale and exhale. Monitor for air exchange, air hunger, or stridor. Follow standard American Heart Association protocols for obstructed airway. Assess the rate and depth of her respirations and note whether her breathing is labored. Look for intercostal and suprasternal retractions and determine if she becomes short of breath with exertion.
Abnormal lung sounds.
Listen for adventitious or decreased breath sounds or a pleural friction rub. Note the duration, frequency, location, aggravating and alleviating factors, and sites of referral or radiation. Be sure to consider a cardiac cause, such as myocardial ischemia or infarction, pericarditis, or cardiac tamponade. Note whether your patient's extremities are cool or if she's pale, cyanotic, or diaphoretic. Abnormal BP readings.