Reference no: EM1397726

A new Nurse intern has been working non-stop for 15 hrs in the ER. A patient was showing serious signs of dehydration. The Nurse took action without checking with the attending physician and administered 1 liter of sterile distilled water intravenously (I-V)

A few hours later , the patient was in worse condition. The resident physician drew blood from the patient and noticed , after centrifugation of the blood sample, that the top plasma layer was pink instead of opaque white.

Questions :

2. The osmolority of blood is actually the osmolarity of plasma. If you know that plasma Osmolarity is 300 milliOsmolar, and the Nurse added 1 Liter of distilled water to the blood, what would the osmolarity of the plasma be after the infusion ? Show your reasoning or calculations.( assume the 1 Liter added to stay within the blood circulation....and is thus added to the plasma of the blood). (Hint : think what mOsmolarity means... then first calculate the total osmolarity of plasma ( you need answers to previous question) and eventually re-calculate mOsmolarity after addition of 1 liter water to the plasma).
4. Finally, if nothing is done, the condition of this patient will become worse. In fact, this patient may go into renal shock. Explain what renal shock refers to and can you provide an explanation why this may happen in this case ?
What would you suggest to do to prevent more damage ?(answer may become available when you research the next question