These Skills Will Help You Master Neuro NCLEX® Questions

• The basis of Neuro NCLEX® questions can be mastered by remembering a few key skills. 
• Regardless of what area of nursing the NCLEX® is testing you about, the question has something to do with safety. 
• Similarly, no matter what the neuro NCLEX ® question is, the ABCs are the first priority. Is their airway intact? Are they breathing? Is their heart pumping and circulating blood? 

Let’s talk about one of the toughest areas of nursing school, NCLEX®, and just nursing in general – neuro! We have a few NCLEX-RN® test-taking strategies to help you pass the NCLEX exam and remember what you need to know about those neuro NCLEX® questions.  

Neuro encompasses everything brain and spinal cord. Think spinal cord injury, brain injury, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Guillain barre syndrome, concussion, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, strokes, Parkinson’s disease (just to name a few). 

It’s All About Safety

First things first, though. Regardless of what area of nursing the NCLEX® is testing you about, the question has something to do with safety. The entire goal of the exam is to test if you are a SAFE nurse. Is the medication you’re giving safe? Which action is the priority to make sure the client is safe? Who needs to be seen first to make sure they are safe from harm? 

It’s all about safety. So, when you are answering neuro NCLEX® questions, you’re trying to ensure your client is SAFE. 

Don’t Forget Your ABCs

Next, regardless of what the question is asking about, the ABCs are still the first priority. Is their airway intact? Are they breathing? Is their heart pumping and circulating blood? Is there a large wound that needs pressure applied? After you have addressed the ABCs then you can move on to the brain and neuro assessments.  

For neuro NCLEX® questions and neuro exams, you need to remember the basics. Here’s a quick review of each of the frequently tested NCLEX neuro areas: 

• Spinal Cord Injury: A traumatic injury that damages the spinal cord and impacts any of the areas below the site of injury. 
• Autonomic Dysreflexia: A medical emergency where a stimulus causes a sudden and uncontrolled reflex sympathetic discharge in individuals with a high-level spinal cord injury. 
• Concussion: A traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by an impact to the head and may result in loss of consciousness. Repeated concussions and repetitive trauma to the brain can lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is a degenerative brain disease. 
• Epilepsy and Seizures: Seizures are sudden, uncontrolled electrical discharges that can result in the loss of motor or sensory control, behavior, and cause a change in level or loss of consciousness. A seizure lasting longer than five minutes or repeated seizures over 30 minutes is considered status epilepticus, which is a medical emergency. Epilepsy is a chronic disorder where unprovoked seizure activity occurs. 
• Migraines: Severe head pain that is characterized by recurrent episodes. 
• Meningitis: A life-threatening infection of the meninges of the brain and spinal cord. Bacterial is more dangerous than viral. 
• Stroke: A stroke is an injury to the brain that can be ischemic or hemorrhagic. An ischemic stroke is caused by a blockage in the cerebral or coronary artery. A hemorrhagic stroke is caused by a rupture of a cerebral artery by traumatic injury or aneurysm rupture. 
• Guilian Barre Syndrome: Inflammatory disorder that causes ascending muscle weakness and paralysis. 
• Myasthenia Gravis: A progressive autoimmune disease that causes the body’s acetylcholine receptors to be impaired and causes muscle weakness. 
• Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Progressive and terminal disease that affects the neurons in the brain and spinal cord. 
• Brain Tumors: Are benign or malignant tumors within the brain that cause neurological impairment. 
• Alzheimer’s Disease: Progressive disease that typically affects adults older than 65 and causes a progressive loss of brain function and impaired cognition.  
• Parkinson’s Disease: A progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes muscle rigidity, tremors, bradykinesia, akinesia, and instability.  
• Multiple Sclerosis: A chronic disease that affects the myelin and nerve fibers of the brain and spinal cord causing generalized weakness and presents as periods of relapsing and remitting, meaning there are days when the disease is in a relapse state or in a remission state.  
• Huntington’s Disease: A rare disorder that is hereditary and causes progressive dementia and uncontrolled rapid and jerky movements in the limbs, trunk and facial muscles. 
• Back and Neck pain: Pain in the back and neck can be caused by muscle strains, sprains, osteoarthritis, disc herniation or spinal stenosis. The injuries to the spine can cause nerve pain and are hard to manage. 

Preparing for Neuro NCLEX® Questions 

When answering questions about any of these areas, always think about airway, breathing, circulation, and how you can keep your client safe. If you keep that in mind and you know what is wrong with the client, then you should be able to pick out the correct answer on your NCLEX® exam.  

So if the question states a client presents to the emergency room by ambulance for symptoms of a stroke, what is your priority? The answer is establishing and maintaining an airway. From there, it’s making sure they are breathing (check that pulse oximeter) and then complete a neuro assessment. 

The Bottom Line 

The best NCLEX® prep is to take a lot of neuro NCLEX® questions that have high-quality rationales to help you learn (and retain) that need-to-know information. Use a prep program like Slone NCLEX that provides you with a variety of test questions that cover all areas from neuro to endocrine to cardiac to every system in the body.

Just know you’ve got this, and we’ve got you!  

Begin your NCLEX® preparation journey with Slone NCLEX today.