NHA Patient Care Technician (CPCT) — All Questions

A patient with diabetes is shaky and sweaty and says he feels low. He is alert and swallowing normally, and facility policy permits a technician to give oral carbohydrate for hypoglycemia. What should the technician give?

• a.Nothing by mouth, with the bed raised, until the nurse gets there
• b.A peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk to hold the level up
• c.About 4 ounces (120 mL) of juice, then a recheck in 15 minutes✓
• d.A diet soft drink and crackers so the sugar does not spike

The standard response to hypoglycemia in an alert patient who can swallow is roughly 15 grams of fast-acting carbohydrate followed by a repeat glucose check about 15 minutes later, and 4 ounces of juice is about 15 grams. Fat and protein slow absorption, so peanut butter and milk raise the glucose too slowly for a patient who is symptomatic now, although they may follow later as a snack to hold the level. A diet drink contains no sugar at all and treats nothing. Withholding oral intake is correct only when the patient cannot swallow safely or is not alert, which is not the case here.

A charge nurse tells a technician to put a vest restraint on a confused patient who is resting quietly in bed. The technician has never been trained on that device, and no restraint order appears in the record. What should the technician do?

• a.Apply the vest, since a licensed nurse gave the instruction directly
• b.Ask the supervisor to confirm the order and arrange training first✓
• c.Apply the vest now and document it after the order has been entered
• d.Raise all four side rails instead until the paperwork is done

Two things are missing here, and neither is optional: a restraint needs a provider order, and the person applying it must be trained on that specific device, so the technician stops and gets both settled while the patient, who is resting quietly, is in no immediate danger. A direct instruction from a nurse does not create an order or supply training, and an untrained application is how patients are strangled by vest restraints. Documenting after the fact does not cure an application that had no authorization at the time. Raising all four side rails is not a workaround, because that is itself a restraint and needs the same order.

While walking in the hallway, a patient stops, grips his chest, and reports crushing pressure spreading into his jaw. What should the technician do first?

• a.Walk him back to his room at a slower pace and then take vital signs
• b.Offer the antacid at his bedside and look in on him again in ten minutes
• c.Stop the walk, help him sit down, stay with him, and call out for the nurse✓
• d.Coach him to breathe slowly and finish the ordered walking distance

Crushing chest pressure radiating to the jaw is treated as cardiac until proven otherwise, so exertion stops instantly, the patient is helped into a safe position where a collapse would not injure him, and help is summoned while the technician stays at his side. Walking him back to the room, even slowly, keeps demanding work from a heart that may not be getting enough blood, and it leaves him upright in a corridor. Giving any medication, including something as ordinary as an antacid, is outside the technician's scope and delays recognition. Breathing exercises and completing the distance treat this as anxiety, a judgment no technician is in a position to make.

Under the OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Standard, which measure is an engineering control for preventing needlestick injuries?

• a.Recapping a needle by the one-handed scoop technique
• b.A syringe whose needle retracts into the barrel after use✓
• c.Wearing two pairs of gloves for every venipuncture drawn
• d.Annual bloodborne pathogens training for all clinical staff

Engineering controls are the devices themselves, redesigned so the hazard is isolated or removed from the workplace: retractable needles, self-sheathing lancets, blunting devices, needleless connectors, and sharps containers. The one-handed scoop is the closest competitor here and is genuinely protective, but it is a work practice control, because it changes how a person performs a task rather than changing the device. Training is an administrative control, and gloves are personal protective equipment, which is the last line of defense rather than the first. Ranking these correctly matters because the standard requires employers to use engineering controls first where they exist.