03.03 Opposites

Another testing strategy that can really help you is something called “Opposites.” I don’t wanna spend a lot of time on this one because it’s pretty simple and the hardest part about this is kinda recognizing the opposites as you’re going through the different options. So, this can be a great testing strategy but it’s really simple. So, we’ll just kinda talk through it pretty quick. With opposites, what you find is, is that if in a question, if an answer option, you have opposite choices. Okay, so, if one saying one thing, the other saying something completely opposite. Usually, one of those is gonna be the correct answer and you should review those before viewing the other 2 options. So, if you have 4 options, 2 of them are saying something opposite. A lot of times it’s one of those two that’s gonna be correct. And so, you really take your chance of getting the question right from 25% down to 50-50 chance if you identify the opposite options. Okay, because, only one of those can be correct and they really usually throwing those opposite options in there to try to throw you off the track. Okay, so, remember, content knowledge is always number one. That’s more important than everything, but to identify some of these opposite options, it can really help you as you go.   Some of the easy ones to recognize here are gonna be things like hyper versus hypo, acute versus chronic, overload versus deficit. Alright, so, hypernatremia or hyponatremia, acute renal failure versus chronic renal failure, the patient’s overload, versus the patient has a deficit. Now, this can be other things too. This can be like morning versus night. Okay, this can be awake versus sleep. This can be different things like that. So, it’s not just gonna be conditions, it’s not just gonna be disease processes. It can be anything that’s opposite. So, when should a patient take, you know, their Levothroid? They should take it first thing in the morning. They should take it last thing at night. Okay, that might be a way where you’ll gonna see opposites. So, really, just look for those opposite ones and really evaluate those ones first and determine if one of them is right.   Let’s do a n example of this. The question reads, the physician orders anti-embolism stockings for a patient. When should the anti-embolism stockings be put on? Option number 1, when the patient is still in bed. Option 2, when the patient complains of leg pain. Option 3, when the patient’s feet become edematous. Option 4, after the patient gets out of bed in the morning. So, if we look at option 1 and option 4, those are opposites. They’re contraindicated to each other in relation to getting out of bed. So, 1 when the patient is in bed and then 4 after the patient gets out of bed. So, once we know what their opposite in relation to, we’re gonna evaluate them first. Alright, now, let’s assess options 2 and 3. So, we’ve identified opposites, let’s look at 2 and 3 really quick. When the patient complains of leg pain. So this one is saying that we should put these anti embolism stockings on after there’s already a problem. Well, we know that can’t be, right? We don’t wanna treat, we don’t wanna put the anti-embolism stockings on after there’s a problem because the whole purpose of them is to prevent leg pain, edema, etc. Number 3, when the patient’s feet become edematous. Now, again, these are both trying to do something after the problem already exist. There’s leg pain after edematous. We wanna have them on there to promote circulation. These options 2 and 3 are trying to apply the stockings after the problem already exist. So, let’s look back at number 1. If we apply a little bit of nursing knowledge, we know that when the patient’s feet become dependent, okay, that’s when edema occurs. Okay, feet are dependent when the patient is up. So, once we’re up, walking around, the feet become dependent and edema can occur. So, we know that we wanna apply those stockings before the patient develops edema before and to kinda promote the circulation, before they get going with their day and before they become dependent. So, option 1 is gonna be our correct one. So, what we’ve done here is we’ve applied opposites, we’ve looked at 1 and 4 as being our opposite options. Would we do it before the patient gets up in the morning or do we do it once they’re up and the feet become dependent? We know edema occurs as the feet become dependent. We know we wanna promote circulation before the patient gets up. So, immediately, we’ve been able to take it from a 25% correct chance to a 50% correct chance by eliminating 2 and 3 and then we really look at the opposite options. That’s where we wanna focus. Only one of them can be right because they’re exact opposites and then we choose number 1 as we know that’s when we want to apply those stockings. So, really, basically, guys, just really look for these opposites. Hyper, hypo, acute, chronic, overload, deficit. And then, as you saw in the question that we did, it doesn’t have to be a disease process related, with that one, you know, it was getting up out of bed. It was in bed, out of bed, it can be morning, night, it can be wake, asleep, etc. So, just really look for anything that’s opposite and understand that usually one of those is gonna be your correct answer. Alright guys, I hope that strategy helps.