Early signs of hypoxaemia
8 questions on this concept, from 4 angles.
The idea in full
Hypoxaemia shows itself first through the brain, the breathing pattern and the pulse — restlessness, anxiety, irritability, a change in the level of consciousness, a rising respiratory rate, accessory-muscle use and tachycardia — long before cyanosis, which is a late and unreliable sign, and before a pulse-oximeter reading falls, which lags the patient and can read normal when perfusion, haemoglobin or the probe are the problem, so the nurse treats any new behavioural change as a possible oxygenation problem and assesses breathing before reaching for anything that would quiet the patient, and reads a struggling patient who has gone quiet and slow as tiring, not settling.
Beliefs this concept corrects
- 1A restless, agitated patient needs reassurance or a sedative, not an oxygenation check
- 2Cyanosis is the sign to wait for before calling it hypoxaemia
- 3A normal pulse-oximeter reading means the patient is oxygenating well
- 4A patient who has stopped struggling to breathe and gone quiet is settling, not tiring
- 5A rising respiratory rate with a clear chest is anxiety, because the lungs sound fine
- 6New confusion in an older patient is delirium or dementia before it is hypoxaemia
- 7A fast pulse in a breathless patient is a cardiac problem, not a respiratory one
- 8A patient who can still talk in full sentences cannot be hypoxaemic
Your record
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