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Case 1: Water Can Kill

1.) Drinking large amounts of water creates a hypotonic environment around the cells in the body. This causes the cells to swell because a lot of water has entered the cells.

2.) Jennifer, Cassandra, and James all had symptoms of headaches, dizziness, nausea. Since all of these patients underwent neurological damage it seems that the nervous tissue was most affected.

3.) The cause of death for these patients was swelling of the brain and vessels until the pressure surpasses the capacity of the cranium, resulting in immediate brain death.

4.) I would request blood and urine samples from the patient to determine sodium levels. If there were high sodium in the urine and low sodium in the blood then it would be evident that the patient is suffering from hyponatremia.

5.) If I were in charge of the care of a patient like Cassandra, Jennifer or James I would administer an IV solution of saline to try and bring more sodium into the cells.

6.) Doctors administer saline instead of pure water to dehydrated patients because they need more sodium in their cells. Saline has more sodium than pure water.

Part 2 Questions

1.) Vasopressin causes the body to retain more water, thus decreasing sodium concentration. Since endurance athletes are releasing vasopressin for longer periods of time they are more vulnerable to hyponatremia.

2.) Desert dwellers are particularly vulnerable to developing hyponatremia because they sweat out a lot of sodium, which decreases the extracellular sodium concentration. They can avoid this danger by covering their skin because then they won’t sweat as much.

3.) Babies and small children have a very high fluid content in their bodies so that makes their risk for hyponatremia higher.