Case Study

Case study 2# - lost in the desert.

Question 1. Given the conditions, what should Henry do to try to save Mark? He must decide very quickly. Mark has very little time left and may not survive the trip by helicopter to the hospital. What has caused Mark’s weakness, nausea, disorientation, headache, and low blood pressure? Why isn’t he sweating?

Answer:

Mark is experiencing extreme heat exhaustion and dehydration which causes weakness, nausea, disorientation, headache and low blood pressure, which may lead to a severe heat stroke causing death. These symptoms occur when the body loses a lot of its water content and essential body salts such as sodium, potassium, calcium bicarbonate, and phosphate and therefore is unable to regulate it’s normal function effectively. He’s not sweating because his fluid levels are to too low, bodily fluids that are involved in sweating are also involved in blood production, therefore sweating has a cut off level where fluids are essential for blood. This is why the blood pressure is so low because the decrease in bodily fluids causes a decrease in blood volume which causes a decrease in flow thus pressure. Given the conditions, Henry should try to get mark out of the heat immediately and try to lower his body temperature and replacing his lost bodily fluids lost as quickly as possible. Henry should take mark inside the helicopter and administer Intravenous (IV) fluids to compensate for fluid and electrolyte loss. He should cut mark’s clothes off and pour cool water over him to induce sweating while replacing fluid lost by IV. If possible henry should try to place ice bags under mark’s armpit and groin to help reduce body temperature faster. [1]

Question 2. Why didn’t the paramedic give Mark bottled water or distilled water rather than an electrolyte/glucose solution and what is an isotonic solution?

Answer: An isotonic solution is one that contain and equal concentration of water molecules to ion molecules/ other solutes....