A nurse is caring for an elderly lady who recently experienced a stroke and who coughs/chokes after ...

C
The nurse used diagnostic reasoning to arrive at a nursing diagnosis. During diagnostic reasoning, the information a nurse collects and analyzes leads to a diagnosis of a patient's condition. Nurses do not make medical diagnoses; they make nursing diagnoses. The scientific method is one formal way (in this scenario the nurse did not use the formal approach) to approach a problem, plan a solution, test the solution, and come to a conclusion; it is usually used in research. Data collection is a component of assessment in the nursing process. In diagnostic reasoning you use patient data that you gather or collect to logically identify a problem. The nurse in this scenario is past data collection and has made a nursing diagnosis: Impaired Swallowing.