Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T03:55:58.127Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Section 1 - General critical care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2013

Kaushal Shah
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York
Jarone Lee
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
Kamal Medlej
Affiliation:
American University of Beirut
Scott D. Weingart
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York
Get access

Summary

This chapter discusses the diagnosis, evaluation and management of shock. It presents special circumstances which make diagnosis and management of shock difficult in pediatric and pregnant patients. Shock should be suspected when patients present with a constellation of signs including ill-appearance, tachycardia, tachypnea, hypotension, and oliguria. The principles of shock management include specific therapy for treating the underlying cause, and general therapy to manage the shock syndrome. Recognition of shock is difficult due to variations in age-dependent vital signs, difficulty in assessing mental status, and the non-specificity of early manifestations of shock such as irritability and poor feeding. Elderly patients experience significantly more morbidity and mortality from all causes of shock due to their limited ability to augment cardiac output and maintain vascular tone. Elderly patients often have multiple comorbidities or use multiple medications that distort the diagnosis and management of shock.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×