The Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Exam (ANCC) is an entry-level advanced certification designed for acute care nurse practitioners that have a graduate level education. This certification allows the acute care nurse practitioner to provide advanced care to acutely ill adult-gerontology patients who include young adults, older adults and the frail elderly.
The Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Exam includes 200 questions, 25 of which are not scored. When registering for the exam, AACN members can expect to pay $255 while non-members will be required to pay $360.
The Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner exam consists of 4 domains of practice.
Domain I: APRN Core Competencies
• Advanced Physiology/Pathophysiology
• Advanced Pharmacology
• Advanced Physical Assessment
Domain II: Clinical Practice
• Clinical Decision Making/Management
• Health promotion and disease-prevention activities
Domain III: Role-Professional Responsibility
• Scope and Standards of Practice
• Research and Evidence-Based Practice
• Education
• Nurse Practitioner-Patient Relationship
Domain IV: Health Care Systems
• Health Care Policy and Delivery
• Quality of Health Care Practice
Scores
Your score on the ANCC is reported as pass or fail. To be considered as passing for the ANCC, you must receive a scale score of 350 or higher out of a possible score of 500. If you fail the ANCC, you will be given a diagnostic feedback for the content areas in the exam. This feedback tells you which content area you need more preparation for.
Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Exam Practice Questions
1.Patients with severe nausea and vomiting not associated with pain are most at risk for:
a. hyperkalemia.
b. hypokalemia.
c. hypercalcemia.
d.hypocalcemia.
2. Pharmacokinetics refers to the:
a. effects the body has on a drug.
b. effects a drug has on the body.
c. way drugs interact with each other.
d. study of how drugs affect the body.
3. Which of the following is an example of a dementia-associated condition resulting from an environmental cause?
a. AIDS.
b. Parkinson’s disease.
c. Huntington’s disease.
d. Alzheimer’s disease.
Answers
- B: Patients with severe nausea and vomiting not associated with pain are most at risk for hypokalemia as well as azotemia and metabolic alkalosis. When nausea and vomiting occur without pain, then the cause may be food poisoning, drugs, or gastroenteritis. Patients may become severely dehydrated. The normal potassium (K) value is 3.5 to 5.5 mEq/L. Hypoglycemia is <3.5 mEq/L with <2.5 mEq/L being the critical value. Signs and symptoms of hypokalemia include lethargy, weakness, nausea, vomiting, paresthesias, dysrhythmias, muscle cramps, hyporeflexia, hypotension, and tetany.
2. A: Pharmacokinetics refers to the effects the body has on a drug, relating to the administration route, absorption dosage, administration frequency, mode of distribution, and serum levels. Pharmacokinetics must include consideration of the rate of clearance of the drug from the body and the mechanism of clearance (most commonly through the kidneys) as well as the dosage required to provide therapeutic benefits. Pharmacodynamics refers to the effects the drug has on the body.
3. A: AIDS is an example of a dementia-associated condition result from an environmental cause. Other examples include alcohol abuse, syphilis, vitamin deficiencies, and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Other causes of dementia include organic (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, normal pressure hydrocephalus), genetic (Huntington’s disease), and traumatic (repeated head injuries, traumatic brain injuries). Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly, accounting for 60% to 80% of cases of dementia in this population.
