To begin I would like to talk about Altitude sickness, or Acute Mountain Sickness. I will define altitude sickness, talk about the symptoms, how to prevent altitude sickness, and how to treat it. I will then talk about what untreated altitude sickness can lead to.
Altitude sickness is an illness you can get from ascending too high above sea level too quickly without acclimatizing to the decrease in oxygen levels. Altitude sickness, also called acute mountain sickness, is caused by exposure to low partial pressure of oxygen at high altitude. At high altitude atmospheric pressure is lower than at sea level. Because of the lower pressure the air expands as it rises which causes it to cool, thus high altitude air is cold. Normally the human body can adapt to high altitude by breathing faster, having a higher heart rate, and adjusting blood chemistry. However above 8,000 meters (26,000 feet) altitude acclimatization becomes almost impossible.
There are two categories of Altitude Sickness; Mild to Moderate, and Severe.
Some of the Symptoms of mild to moderate altitude sickness may include:
• Difficulty sleeping
• Dizziness or light-headedness
• Fatigue
• Headache
• Loss of appetite
• Nausea or vomiting
• Rapid pulse (heart rate)
• Shortness of breath with exertion
Symptoms that may occur with more severe acute mountain sickness include:
• Blue color to the skin (cyanosis)
• Chest tightness or congestion
• Confusion
• Cough
• Coughing up blood
• Decreased consciousness or withdrawal from social interaction
• Gray or pale complexion
• Cannot walk in a straight line, or walk at all
• Shortness of breath at rest
There are also some risk factors that make you more susceptible to altitude sickness. Some of these risk factors are:
• If y...
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... as the heart, major blood vessels, and airways) toward the other side of the chest. The shift can cause the other lung to become compressed, and can affect the flow of blood returning to the heart. This situation can lead to low blood pressure, shock, and death.
Symptoms of a tension pneumothorax
• Sudden chest pain
• Shortness of breath
• Chest tightness
• Easy fatigue
• Bluish color of the skin due to lack of oxygen
• Rapid heart rate
• Low blood pressure
• Decreased mental alertness
• Decreased consciousness
• Rapid breathing
• Bulging (distended) veins in the neck
Tension Pneumothorax requires immediate attention. A needle or chest tube needs to be inserted into the chest cavity to release the pressure as soon as possible. If an evacuation is going to take a long period of time you may have to do this procedure yourself. That is not recommended though.
Chapter 1: This book starts in the chronological middle of the story. It has Krakauer atop everest with a storm brewing. Then it starts to explain physical ailments like coughing, separated ribs, trouble breathing, and a varied mental state because of a lack of oxygen. Two other guides are up with him Anatoli Boukreev and Andy Harris.
Have you ever wanted to prove to everyone that you are a hard worker that is willing to give up everything to go on an adventure? If this is you than Everest is the perfect place for you. A great deal of Everest’s dangers are expressed in his book which should either inspire you to try this journey or sway you away from the treacherous mountain. In the story, “ Into Thin Air,” by Jon Krakauer a true story is told of a dangerous voyage up and down Everest. The climb up was arduous and long according to Jon, but the climbers sacrificed everything to get to the top, which most of the climbers achieved. However, emotions shifted when a storm swooped in and killed many of the climbers that were stuck on the summit, around 12-19 in total. The devices
As you practice remember that inhalation and exhalation are both done through the nose and should be an equal amount of time in duration. Make sure to keep your breath flowing and your throat open. Don’t tense your shoulders or jaw. Be careful not to overfill your lungs as it will cause tension. Finally, keep your navel pulled in while breathing.
. On March 1996, Outside magazine hired journalist and seasoned climber Jon Krakauer to write an about the commercialism on Mount Everest. Krakauer decides he would climb the mountain and get a firsthand experience, he set out on an expedition led by celebrated Everest guide Rob Hall. Despite the expertise of Hall and the other leaders, by the end of summit day eight people were dead. This proves that this is not an easy expedition, it is one that people risk their lives to do. With a lot of hard work and dedication Jon Krakauer successfully finished the climb and decided he wanted to write more than the article that he was assigned to. This is where Into Thin Air became. It is a book telling the story of the ill-fated adventure and a breakdown of the factors leading up to its tragic end. Written within months of the various events that occurred. As the journey up the mountain progresses, Krakauer puts it in context by recalling the triumphs and perils of other Everest trips throughout history. The author's own anguish over what happened on the mountain is intense and also points out how extremely sorry he was for the ones that los...
There are many factors that contribute to staying alive in this environment such as natural ones that include altitude, temperature, weather, mountain conditions that end up creating physical and psychological issues for the human specimen. A combination of experience, modern technology and on-feet thinking is used to bypass these factors. Mount Everest is the world’s highest mountain peaking into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere at 8848 metres above sea level. At this level of altitude the weather is drastically different to the normal ground-level weather a human would be familiar to. Freezing winds over 160km/h are a constant hassle that impact the visibility and temperature. With temperature always below minus 50 degrees Celsius and a lack of oxygen by 14%, this becomes difficult for the climber to function physically and psychologically which lead to numerous medical conditions such as headaches, edema, frostbite, confusion, nausea, chest problems which is also usually related to dehydration. To keep the winds out of the climbers’ face they wear glacier glasses with side covers and synthetic bandanas with a balaclava, ski goggles and a baseball cap. This helps the block out the wind and cold enabling the climber to see much more efficiently in winds rushing at their face. Layering is a technique that prevents the human body from freezing to death. It involves of wearing layers of lightweight fleece, synthetic zip-up jackets and insulated synthetic pants. These clothing are designed to insulate the human body by keeping the human body’s warmth within the walls of the clothing. The same material is used to make the sleeping bags which the climbers use. Other mountain conditions
blood from the lungs is reduced causing patients to become tired and short of breath (AHA,
Beck Weathers, A survivor of the 1996 Mt Everest disaster, is one tough doctor. He was from Texas and was wanting to complete “The Seven Summits”.That dream was cut short by the disaster. I'm going to talk about his time on Everest.
This is a direct consequence of acute airway narrowing and critical increases in airway resistance. These lead to two important mechanical changes: the increased pressures required for airflow may overload respiratory muscles leading to hypercapnic respiratory failure, and the narrowed airways create regions of lung that cannot properly empty and return to their resting volume (MacIntyre & Huang, 2008, p. 532). The patient needs to be monitored for tachypnea, cyanosis, altered LOC, or wheezing to alert the health care team to possible respiratory failure. Both of these complications will require immediate intervention, as both dysrhythmias and respiratory failure quickly decrease perfusion to vital organs and can be
Imagine yourself strapped to a mountain, chained up with two other people, struggling to take another move up, it's starting to get steep and the more you move up the harder it is to breathe. Mountaineers face a numerous amount of issues when attempting to climb Mt. Everest. They put their own lives at risk by climbing the mountain. So why do they do it? Just thinking about being on a steep cliff, accidentally making the wrong move, and next thing you know you’re tumbling down the mountain struggling to get a grip of anything. These are the things that make me think of the risks of climbing this mountain.
If no pulse is present, give five chest compressions. To achieve effective compressions, the child should be supine on a hard, flat surface. Use one hand to maintain the position of the head. With the other hand, use two fingers to trace the lower margin of the rib cage. Find where the ribs and sternum meet, avoid doing compressions in that notch. Place the heel of your hand over the lower half in the sternum, between the nipple line and the notch. Compress the chest approximately one to one and a half inches. Follow the compressions with one slow breath.
Transposition of the Great Arteries is when the aorta and the pulmonary artery are switched. It is also know as TGA or congenital defect. “Transposition means the displacement of a viscous to a site opposite from that which it normally occupies” said by the Merriam-Webster medical dictionary. TGA is a congenital defect which means it is present at birth. The arteries being switched causes there to be two different blood flows instead of one. The body receives deoxygenated blood and the lungs receive the oxygenated blood. Transposition Great is a rare defect but it is serious. It is diagnosed within the first hours to weeks of birth.
The nurse should also look for these signs if the patient is brought in for a chest injury, has lung disease or on a mechanical ventilation (MayoClinic, 2016). First, the nurse should listen to the patient’s breath sounds to see if they are either absent or diminished. Typically, the diagnostic test that is used is a chest x-ray or in some instances a computerized tomography (CT scan) to be able to see images with more detail (MayoClinic, 2016). These tests can confirm if the patient does in fact have a pneumothorax. The treatment and goal when a patient has a pneumothorax is to relieve pressure in the lung to the point that it is able to re-expand (MayoClinic, 2016). A needle or a chest tube can be used to remove excess air that is preventing the lung from expanding (MayoClinic, 2016). If this does not solve the problem, surgery can be done. A doctor can surgically go into the patient using a small incision and close the hole. There are a few complications that can occur when an individual has a pneumothorax such as the patient potentially having another one and potentially needing surgery if the whole does not close and air continues to leak (MayoClinic,
As blood travels through the circulatory system, it is first pumped from the right side of the heart to the lungs through the pulmonary arteries and then separates into arterioles which split into capillaries. Here, the deoxygenated blood receives oxygen diffused in the lungs due to large surface area and travel back through venules and then pulmonary veins to the left side of the heart. From here, the oxygen rich blood is pumped throughout the body in arteries, arterioles, and capillaries, providing the body and cells with nutrients through osmosis. Afterwards, the now deoxygenated blood travels back to the right side of the heart containing deoxygenated blood, through venules and vein to repeat the cycle over again. Also, the heart is nourished by coronary circulation through the Right and Left Main Coronary Arteries.
When people go diving they make sure that they have enough oxygen in the tank so that way the won't run out and die. This goes for when people climb on everest, because the oxygen levels get so low that you eventually start to run out of air and die because of lack of oxygen. When or if they run out and aren't able to call anyone for help they will die on the
A tension pneumothorax can be caused by a blunt or penetrating trauma, in the case study provided it would be a blunt trauma. The trauma to the chest area causes damage to the plural cavity; either the visceral (lines either lung) or parietal plura (lines the thoracic wall), or can be caused by trauma to the traceobronchial tree (Daley, 2014). The trauma to the chest area causes the formation of a one-way-valve, this allows for the air to flow into the plural space on inhalation, but on exhalation cannot be expelled (Curtis, Ramsden, & Lord, 2011). As the trapped air in the lungs build up within the affected side it can cause serious complications. In the case study it is the left lung that is in distress, and as the pressure increases within the left lung it can cause an impaired venus return to the right atrium (Daley, 2014). The increased pressure can eventually affect the right lung as the pressure builds in the left side and causes mediastinal shift which increases pressure on the right lung, which decreases the patients ability to breath, and diffuse the bodies tissues appropriately. The increase in pressure on the left side where the original traum...