Help with Evaluation Methods for the Nervous System Practice Test

A 65-year old nursing home resident is referred to you from her primary care physician, who is concerned that she may have a neurological deficit. As you proceed to test her cranial nerves, you note her blink reflex is absent (she doesn’t blink when you touch her cornea with a cotton swab). In order to figure out what is wrong, you ask her to make different facial expressions including shutting her eyes tightly, which she successfully does.

Now confident that you know which cranial nerve is involved, what other deficit do you expect to see in this patient?

A 62-year old man with a history of chicken pox as a child presents with a rash around his neck for the past two days. He recalls an intense burning pain in the same area a few days before the rash appeared. This is the first time he has experienced this and admits that his family physician has been pushing him to get the shingles vaccine. After doing some reading on shingles, the patient asks you “what spinal nerve is affected?”