A physical therapist reviews the morning labs of a 68-year-old male on the medical floor, scheduled for a progressive ambulation session. Hemoglobin is 7.4 g/dL (reference 13.5–17.5 g/dL for males). The patient reports fatigue but wants to participate. Which of the following is the MOST appropriate action?

Defer strenuous activity, limit the session to essential mobility as tolerated, and communicate with the medical team

Proceed with the planned progressive ambulation program as tolerated

Increase session intensity to stimulate red blood cell production

Discharge the patient from therapy services until the value normalizes

A 54-year-old female undergoing chemotherapy has a platelet count of 15,000/mm³ on morning labs (reference 150,000–400,000/mm³). Her planned session includes progressive resistance exercise. Which of the following is the MOST appropriate action?

Hold exercise, coordinate with the medical team, and limit activity to what facility guidelines permit at this level

Proceed with resistance exercise using lighter weights

Substitute aquatic therapy to reduce joint loading

Continue the program unchanged, since platelet counts do not affect exercise safety

A 41-year-old male with type 1 diabetes checks his blood glucose before a scheduled outpatient exercise session. The reading is 58 mg/dL. He reports feeling "a little shaky." Which of the following is the MOST appropriate action?

Provide 15 grams of fast-acting carbohydrate, recheck glucose in 15 minutes, and delay exercise until it normalizes

Begin the session with low-intensity warm-up and monitor symptoms

Have the patient administer his usual insulin dose before starting

Cancel the session and reschedule for the following week

A physical therapist reviews the chart of a 77-year-old female on a loop diuretic before a scheduled session. This morning's potassium is 2.9 mEq/L (reference 3.5–5.0 mEq/L). Which of the following is the MOST appropriate action?

Hold the exercise session and notify the medical team of the value

Proceed with the session, encouraging potassium-rich foods afterward

Reduce exercise intensity by half and monitor heart rate

Perform passive range of motion only, then progress to active exercise if tolerated

A 72-year-old male with COPD is ambulating in the hallway with a physical therapist. His resting SpO2 was 93% on room air. During ambulation he becomes short of breath, and pulse oximetry reads 85%. Which of the following is the MOST appropriate IMMEDIATE action?

Stop the activity, seat the patient, encourage pursed-lip breathing, and allow recovery — applying supplemental oxygen per orders if saturation does not recover

Continue ambulating at a slower pace to build tolerance to desaturation

Instruct the patient to hold his breath and bear down to raise intrathoracic pressure

Complete the planned distance, then document the desaturation episode

A 47-year-old female receiving chemotherapy has an absolute neutrophil count (ANC) of 400/mm³. She is on neutropenic precautions. Which of the following BEST describes the appropriate physical therapy approach?

Treat in the patient's room with strict hand hygiene, following the facility's protective precautions, and defer treatment if the therapist has any signs of illness

Treat in the therapy gym during off-peak hours to reduce patient contact

Suspend all physical therapy until the ANC exceeds 1,500/mm³

Proceed normally, since neutropenia affects infection response but not exercise capacity

A physical therapist arrives to treat an 81-year-old male admitted two days ago. Morning labs show a sodium of 118 mEq/L (reference 135–145 mEq/L). The nurse mentions he has been increasingly confused since last evening. Which of the following is the MOST appropriate action?

Hold the session and confirm the medical team is aware of the value and the mental status change

Proceed with the session using extra verbal cueing for the confusion

Encourage increased oral fluid intake before beginning mobility work

Perform bedside cognitive screening to establish a baseline before treatment

A 63-year-old male admitted overnight with chest pain is on the therapist's morning list for evaluation. Chart review shows his troponin drawn four hours ago is elevated and trending upward, with a repeat draw pending. Which of the following is the MOST appropriate action?

Defer mobility and exertion, and confirm with the medical team before any activity

Complete the evaluation including a low-level ambulation assessment

Proceed with the evaluation but keep heart rate below 120 beats per minute

Perform the evaluation seated to minimize orthostatic stress

A 52-year-old female with type 2 diabetes tells her physical therapist that her recent HbA1c was 9.2%, though her fasting glucose "was fine this morning." Which of the following BEST describes what the HbA1c value indicates?

Her average blood glucose control over approximately the past 2 to 3 months, which is currently above the common treatment target

Her blood glucose at the moment the sample was drawn

Her risk of hypoglycemia during today's exercise session

Her kidney function, since A1c is cleared renally

A physical therapist is treating a 79-year-old male with a stage 3 sacral pressure injury that has shown minimal healing over three weeks despite appropriate wound care and offloading. Chart review shows a serum albumin of 2.4 g/dL (reference 3.5–5.0 g/dL). Which of the following BEST explains the relevance of this value?

It reflects protein-energy malnutrition, which impairs tissue repair — nutrition team involvement should be confirmed as part of the wound plan

It indicates dehydration, so wound healing will improve with increased fluids alone

It indicates liver failure, making wound healing impossible until transplant

It is unrelated to wound healing and requires no action from the rehabilitation team

10 Free NPTE Lab Values Practice Questions (2026) - Practitionr

About This Topic

How Lab Values Are Tested on the NPTE

Lab values on the NPTE live inside the acute-care and safety threads of the FSBPT content outline — scored across the cardiopulmonary, metabolic, and safety domains rather than as a section of their own. Try our free 20-question timed NPTE practice test, Pharmacology practice questions, or Other Systems practice questions to see how chart-review details are framed across the exam.

The values that carry a testable PT action

→Hemoglobin — severe anemia limits activity to essential mobility

→Platelets — severe thrombocytopenia holds exercise; moderate levels drop resistance

→Glucose — below 70 treat before exercising; markedly high values defer

→Potassium & sodium — electrolyte extremes are hold-and-notify values

→SpO2 — desaturation during activity stops the activity

→ANC — severe neutropenia flips the direction of precautions

→INR — over-anticoagulation defers high-force techniques

→Troponin — rising values mean no exertion until cleared

→HbA1c — long-term glycemic control shapes the plan, not today’s session

→Albumin — protein depletion explains stalled wound healing

Note that facility protocols vary on exact activity thresholds, and the NPTE writes around that variation: questions test the CATEGORY of response — proceed, modify, or hold-and-communicate — anchored to clearly abnormal values, not borderline cases where guidelines disagree. If a vignette gives you a value far outside its reference range plus a matching symptom, the exam is asking whether you recognize the emergency. See our full NPTE exam format breakdown for how these items fit into the 225-question structure.

The pattern to recognize

Lab value vignettes almost always pair the number with its symptom — hypokalemia with palpitations, hyponatremia with confusion, anemia with fatigue, hypoglycemia with shakiness. The pairing is the test: it asks whether you connect what the patient is showing to what the chart already explains. And the wrong answers follow a pattern of their own — they treat the symptom as a therapy obstacle to work around (cue more, slow down, adapt the session) instead of the medical finding it is. When a symptom and an abnormal value point at each other, the answer is nearly always communicate, not accommodate.

Cross-Content Reasoning

Where Lab Values Connect Across the Exam

Lab values are the acute-care face of content tested elsewhere on the exam. The pharmacology thread supplies the causes: the loop diuretic behind the hypokalemia, the warfarin behind the INR, the insulin timing behind the hypoglycemia — a medication in the history usually explains the abnormal value in the chart. The cardiopulmonary section supplies the monitoring context: SpO2 thresholds, troponin and cardiac stability, hemoglobin and aerobic capacity all live at that border.

The other systems connect through metabolism and healing — glucose and HbA1c to diabetes management, albumin to the integumentary section’s wound questions — while the non-systems section supplies the safety framework: infection control for the neutropenic patient, emergency response for the hypoglycemic one, and the professional judgment of when a finding requires physician communication before treatment.

That last connection is the deepest one. Lab value questions are screening questions wearing numbers: the same recognize-and-refer judgment tested with visceral referral patterns and red flags, except here the red flag arrives pre-measured. A student who has internalized the screening mindset — mechanical problems get treated, medical problems get escalated — will answer most lab questions correctly even when a specific threshold is fuzzy.

Study tip

Build a three-column lab card: value, reference range, and the ONE action an abnormal result triggers. Ten rows cover the values above. Then add a fourth column linking each value to its usual cause — the diuretic, the chemotherapy, the anticoagulant — because the exam loves to test the value and its cause in the same vignette. Review it alongside your pharmacology card; they are two halves of the same chart review, and our complete NPTE study guide covers how to fold both into a full study plan.

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