You Are a Nurse on a Post-Surgical Ward

question 46

Multiple Choice

You are a nurse on a post-surgical ward. One of your patients is an elderly woman who has just had her gallbaldder removed. When you go into her room to check on her, you find that she has significant diarrhea, as well as fever and abdominal pain. You suspect that she has Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) , and send a sample of her feces down to the hospital lab for analysis. The test result indicates that your patient does indeed have CDI. You make your patient comfortable and answer her questions about her illness.
-Your patient asks what treatment she will be given for the CDI. You explain that initially, she will be taken off all antibiotics. This may cure her by

• A) allowing her own gut normal microbiota to recover and to outcompete the C. difficile.
• B) strengthening her innate and adaptive immune responses against the Clostridium difficile.
• C) destroying any endospores that the C. difficile may have produced.
• D) destroying any endospores that the C. difficile may have produced AND strengthening her innate and adaptive immune responses against the Clostridium difficile.
• E) increasing antibiotic sensitivity in the Clostridium difficile, thereby weakening the pathogen so that the person's own immune system gets effectively rid of it.

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Definitions:

Origin

The point or place where something begins, arises, or is derived.

Antagonist

In pharmacology, a substance that acts against and blocks an action by binding to a receptor without activating it, effectively preventing the natural ligand or agonist from exerting its effect.

Tendon

A cord-like, fibrous tissue that connects muscle to bone.

Aponeurosis

A fibrous sheet or flat, expanded tendon that attaches muscles to the parts they move.