A comprehensive clinical examination is the basis for selecting further diagnostic steps:
- General physical examination – including blood pressure, pulse, body weight, height; further:
- Inspection (viewing).
- Skin, mucous membranes and sclerae (white part of the eye).
- Auscultation (listening) to the lungs [due tosymptom: dyspnea (shortness of breath)].
- Inspection (viewing).
- ENT medical examination – including laryngoscopy (laryngoscopy).
- Neurological examination if necessary [due todifferential diagnoses:
- Bulbar paralysis – disease in which there is a failure of motor cranial nerve nuclei.
- Superior laryngeal nerve lesion.
- Inferior laryngeal nerve lesion
- Wallenberg syndrome (synonyms: Brainstem syndrome, Dorsolateral medulla-oblongatat syndrome or Arteria-cerebellaris-inferior-posterior syndrome; English PICA syndrome) – special form of apoplexy (stroke)]
Square brackets [ ] indicate possible pathological (pathological) physical findings.