Head Lymph Nodes exam

We're now going to begin the physical examination and we usually begin the examination with the head. You'll notice that the examination proceeds in a very orderly fashion from the top to the bottom and as we go through the evaluation of various parts of the body, we will first evaluate the patient by inspection, palpation, percussion, and then auscultation. We're going to first evaluate the cranial bones, the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital bones, evaluating whether or not there is any depression of any of these bones. We also want to evaluate hair. We want to evaluate the texture of the hair

and whether or not the hair is firmly attached to the scalp. Our assessment will then continue with assessment of the lymph nodes and there are a variety of lymph node chains in the head and neck. We will begin with evaluation of the occipital nodes and the evaluation is done by a very gentle rolling motion of the fingers as they go over the head and neck. We then come to the posterior auricular nodes, down into the posterior triangle, up along the sternocleidomastoid for the superficial cervical nodes, down deep to the sternocleidomastoid for the deep cervical nodes,

back up again to the anterior auricular nodes and down along the jaw margin to the tonsillar nodes, the submaxillary nodes, the submental nodes, and then moving up back to the anterior auricular nodes. We're now going to continue with examination of the eyes.