Health Assessment, part 22: Cranial Nerve I - Olfactory

Hi, I'm Meris. And in this video, I'm going to review with you the type and function and assessment of cranial nerve one olfactory. And I'm going to be following along using our health assessment flashcards. These are available on our website, leveluprn.com. If you want to get a hard copy for yourself, or if you prefer a digital product, you should definitely check out Flashables, which is our digital flashcard also available on leveluprn.com. All right, let's get started. All right. So talking about cranial nerve number one, olfactory. Remember, we only have one nose. So cranial nerve one, olfactory. The type of nerve that this is is sensory. This only has the function of sense of smell. There is no other function to the olfactory nerve. It does not have a motor component. Its only job is smell the flowers, right? That's its only job. So how do we assess it? It's pretty straightforward, isn't it? When we're talking about assessing cranial nerve one olfactory, we're going to have the patient identify a familiar scent. And the scents that we chose as examples are because these are the ones that are very commonly used as examples for assessing this cranial nerve. Soap, mint, or coffee. Soap, mint, or coffee are three smells that are pretty universally identifiable. So if I present my patient with-- they're going to have their eyes closed, I'm going to put something underneath their nose. I'm going to ask them to smell it and identify it, right? So they close their nose. And then it's some kind of weird candle that you got at the mall that has a conglomeration of scents. How do I know that they are or are not able to identify it correctly versus, ah, that's mint, right? I know that smell. I know mint. I know coffee. I know soap, right? So things of that nature would be what we would ask our patient to identify. And then we do indeed have a cool chicken hint here at the bottom. We love a cool chicken hint here. So to help you remember what the function is of this, our hint here is that I can smell-- I can smell that old factory, I can smell that old factory down the road to help you remember that olfactory is the nerve responsible for sense of smell. All right, now I'm going to test your knowledge of some key facts provided in this video using our quiz questions. What type of smell should the nurse use to test cranial nerve one? A familiar and easily recognizable scent, such as soap, mint, or coffee. All right, that is it for this video where we review just cranial nerve one. I hope I'll see you in the next one. All right. Thanks so much and happy studying. [BLOOPERS] And a plain olfactory nerve. I wonder if I can recreate that song because it was like 12 hypoglossal, 11 spinal accessory, 10 Las Vegas. They call it Las Vegas. Instead of like vagus nerve. Anyway, sorry, Meris, shut up and stop recording.