Difficulty: Medium
Average Score: 80%
Full-length
The nurse observes a client during a seizure and notes that the client's entire body became rigid, and the muscles in all four extremities alternated between relaxation and contraction. Which type of seizure should the nurse document that the client had experienced?
Correct answer
C
Rationale
The description of the seizure, with the entire body becoming rigid (tonic phase) followed by alternating relaxation and contraction of muscles in all four extremities (clonic phase), is characteristic of a tonic-clonic seizure. Partial seizures involve only a portion of the body or brain, absence seizures are brief lapses in awareness without significant motor activity, and complex partial seizures involve altered consciousness with automatisms, none of which match the described symptoms.