2.1 Basic and Personal Care
Key Takeaways
- Virginia CNA candidates should treat infection control as a safety habit, not a separate topic: hand hygiene, clean-to-dirty care, PPE, and linen handling appear across resident-care scenarios.
- Personal care questions usually reward independence, dignity, privacy, and the least restrictive assistance that still keeps the resident safe.
- Vital signs and measurements must be taken exactly, recorded promptly, and reported when abnormal or changed from the resident baseline.
- ADL care is exam-specific when it connects technique to risk: aspiration, skin breakdown, falls, contractures, catheter-associated infection, and diabetic foot injury.
- On the Virginia NNAAP skills evaluation, five assigned skills must be completed within 30 minutes, so safety setup and correction of mistakes must be automatic.
Basic Nursing Care Starts with Safety
Virginia CNA resident-care questions often describe ordinary tasks: bathing, dressing, feeding, toileting, turning, transferring, and taking vital signs. The safest answer is usually the one that protects the resident from infection, injury, aspiration, skin breakdown, and loss of dignity while staying within the care plan.
Care Patterns to Know
| Situation | CNA action the exam rewards |
|---|---|
| Bathing or perineal care | Work clean to dirty, expose only the area being washed, use clean strokes, and change soiled briefs promptly. |
| Weakness after stroke | Dress the weak side first and undress the strong side first. Support the weak side during ambulation. |
| Dementia or confusion during ADLs | Use short steps, calm tone, familiar routine, and choices the resident can answer. |
| Vital signs | Measure accurately, compare with baseline, record the result, and report abnormal findings or sudden changes. |
| Incontinence or immobility | Clean and dry skin, reposition as directed, keep linens smooth, and report redness or open areas. |
Infection control is built into every task. Use hand hygiene before and after resident contact, after glove removal, and whenever moving from a dirty task to a clean task. Gloves protect during contact with blood, body fluids, mucous membranes, non-intact skin, soiled linen, or contaminated equipment, but they never replace hand hygiene.
For feeding, position the resident upright, verify the diet card, offer small bites, watch for coughing or pocketing food, and report swallowing difficulty. For oral care on an unconscious resident, side positioning protects the airway. For diabetic residents or residents with poor circulation, nail trimming is outside routine CNA care; report the need to the nurse.
The Virginia knowledge exam is a 70-question written or oral test with a 2-hour limit, and the skills evaluation assigns five skills in 30 minutes. Practice care sequences until setup, privacy, call light placement, bed low and locked, and exact recording of measurements happen without prompting.
A Virginia CNA is helping a resident with left-sided weakness get dressed before breakfast. Which action best reflects safe personal care technique?
During morning care, a resident coughs repeatedly while drinking thin liquids. What should the CNA do first?