The questions to further evaluate the patient’s symptoms would include his diet, recent lifestyle changes or events, onset on symptoms, past medical history, family history, duration of symptoms, characteristics of fatigue and weakness, and any aggravating or relieving factors. These questions would address the OLD CART method for assessment to thoroughly gather objective and subjective data. An example of aggravating factors in this situation would be stressful events with weight loss, interrupted sleep with fatigue, and poor diet contributing to weakness (Dunphy, Winland-Brown, Porter, & Thomas, 2017).
Discussion #1 You are evaluating a 78-year-old white male who comes to your office today with unintentional weight loss of 10 lbs. in the last year, self-reported exhaustion weakness based…