Question

A 7-year-old boy is a patient in your intensive care unit. He was on a camping trip with his family when he accidentally fell on the campfire, causing severe second- and third-degree burns over 60% of his body. The clinical care team tells his parents that it will be critical to maintain their son’s airway and keep his fluid levels high.

In your initial post answer the following questions in detail use PHYSIOLOGY to describe the pathology. Be clear in explanation do not use vague terms.

1. The father is confused and asks you why his son’s fluid level is important after a burn. How would you explain this to him?
2. After your explanation, the father nods that he understands. He then asks how you will measure his son’s fluid levels. How would you respond?
3. As a clinician with knowledge of physiology, which aspects of this boy’s condition would you be most concerned about?

Answer 1

After the burn injury to maintain perfusion and to avoid hypovolemia fluid management is important. skin tissue loses sodium, protein, and water due to severe burns, so It is important to restore the adequate volume of IV fluids to prevent burns shock in severe burns. It maintains electrolyte balance, fluid level and prevents the child from burns shock.
When the body surface area burns over 10% they need formal fluid resuscitation based on body size and surface area burned. it will be calculated with the particular formula for fluid maintenance for 24 hours as an initial resuscitation.
Second and third-degree burns are more serious, it damages every large area of skin up to nerve endings. So the patient may not have severe pain, because it damages the nerves that cause pain stimuli. It is important to remove and repair scarred skin. skin grafting is important to cover the burn area. Healthy skin from one part of the body removed and replaced to burns area. skin is the major organ of the body for a major role in preventing fluid loss and preventing infection from a harmful microorganism. so it is important to cover the burns area in third-degree burns.