Now part of the popular LPN Threads series, this market-leading text helps students develop the practical knowledge and problem-solving skills they need for a successful career as an LPN/LVN. It uses an engaging "1-2-3 approach" that describes what needs to be done in a situation as well as how to do it. Questions, quizzes, and self-assessments encourage active participation and critical thinking, while serving as practical and efficient aids to learning. Coverage of leadership and management has been substantially increased in this edition.Plentiful Critical Thinking Exercises encourage problem-solving for both academic and interpersonal situations.Learning Exercises related to chapter content challenge students to imagine, visualize, and think outside the box.A separate chapter on learning strategies for the adult student includes research on right-brain/left-brain learning and suggestions for time management.Leadership Activities and Management Tools provide practical instructions, resources, and opportunities to practice and apply leadership and management skills using a variety of methods.Leadership Hints and Management Hints offer helpful tips to follow and remember when in a leadership or management situation. Communication content explains three-way communication - verbal, nonverbal, and affective - and how all three ways of communicating can affect patient-nurse interactions.Up-to-date information on distance learning and the Internet as a component of returning education covers online resources, study groups, and computer-aided instruction and simulations.A chapter on the NCLEX-PN® Exam (Chapter 22) offers tips for taking the exam.Provides basic information on Nursing Interventions Classifications (NIC) and Nursing Outcomes Classifications (NOC), promoting awareness and recognition of how these nursing languages are used.Health care settings and costs of managed care are addressed, including current trends in employment opportunities for LPN/LVNs and career alternatives beyond the hospital setting.Full-color LPN Threads design - with objectives, key terms, key points, review questions, references and suggested readings, and more - makes this accessible, reader-friendly book even easier to use.NCLEX-PN Test Plan Comparison maps content from the text with the current test plan.A new chapter on Critical Thinking for Clinical Competence (chapter 6) addresses critical thinking as it applies to the LPN/LVN.A new chapter on Personal Health Promotion (chapter 10) discusses stress management and burnout, nutrition and exercise, the impaired nurse, and codependency. Material on ethics and legal issues has been separated into two chapters: Ethics Applied to Nursing (chapter 19) and Nursing and the Law (chapter 20). More cultural content discusses culturally diverse patients and the appropriate nursing responses, including added content on Islam.New information on the newly passed Medicare bill describes the many changes that affect health care and the older adult population.