Water Can Kill? Part I

Case study

Water Can Kill? Exploring Effects of Osmosis

Part I

Questions

1. What sort of environment (hypertonic, isotonic, hypotonic) does consuming excessive amounts of pure water create in the body fluid that surrounds your cells? What effect would this have on your cells?

A hypotonic environment would be created around the cells causing them to swell due to the eventual movement of water to the intracellular compartments because of the low plasma osmolarity of sodium.

2. What types of symptoms did Jennifer, Cassandra, and James have in common? Which organ or tissue seems to have been most affected?

Jennifer and James both experiences nausea and vomit, although its not clear whether Cassandra presented the symptoms, theoretically the headaches must’ve happened because of the brains limited capacity to swell before an edema occurs.

3. Keeping in mind your answers to questions 1 and 2, what do you think the immediate cause of death was for Jennifer, Cassandra, and James?

Gradual swelling of the brain and vessels until the pressure surpasses the capacity of the cranium, therefor-immediate brain death.

4. If you suspected that a patient’s symptoms were caused by the condition suffered by Jennifer, Cassandra, and James, what kinds of test would you run to confirm your suspicions?

I would suspect the patient is suffering from hyponatremia if a survey and physical examination correlate with each other toward positive symptoms of the condition. To confirm I would request blood and urine samples to determine if the sodium levels. High sodium in the urine and low sodium in the serum would confirm my suspicion.

5. Once you knew the cause of their symptoms, what kind of emergency treatment might you try for a patient like Cassandra or James if you...