anoxia patient case report

What is an example of an internal cause of anoxia?

For example, internal causes include your heart or blood vessels not getting oxygen to your brain. External causes include less available oxygen or inhaling environmental toxins. Anemic anoxia occurs when your blood can’t carry enough oxygen around your body to keep your organs functioning properly.

What is anoxia and how is it treated?

If a cardiac event or heart condition has caused anoxia, your doctor will treat you for these conditions or refer you to a heart specialist for further treatment. Losing oxygen to your brain can cause permanent damage or loss in your ability to walk, talk, or perform basic functions.

What is stagnant anoxia (hypoxicischemic injury)?

Stagnant anoxia is also known as hypoxicischemic injury. It occurs when your blood doesn’t reach your brain or other body parts that need it. This can happen even when your blood is carrying plenty of oxygen and hemoglobin.

Can moderate anorexia nervosa be managed in the outpatient setting?

This case report illustrates an adolescent with clinical presentation of moderate anorexia nervosa with no significant co-morbidities. It highlights the management of anorexia nervosa in the outpatient setting by a multi-disciplinary health care team which includes a family physician, a dietician, a psychologist and a child psychiatrist.

What causes anoxia?

Each type of anoxia has a different internal or external cause. For example, internal causes include your heart or blood vessels not getting oxygen to your brain. External causes include less available oxygen or inhaling environmental toxins.

How long does it take for anoxia to appear?

Your brain can last a few minutes without oxygen before any symptoms appear. At times, symptoms may be delayed and take several days or weeks to appear.

What happens when your body loses oxygen?

Anoxia happens when your body or brain completely loses its oxygen supply. Anoxia is usually a result of hypoxia. This means that a part of your body doesn’t have enough oxygen. When your body is harmed by a lack of oxygen, it’s called a hypoxic-anoxic injury. Hypoxia can be a consequence of many conditions.

What happens if you are without oxygen for a long time?

changes in judgment. trouble walking or moving your arms or legs normally. weakness. feeling dizzy or disoriented. unusual headaches. trouble concentrating. Other symptoms may become noticeable after your brain has been without oxygen for more than four to five minutes. These include: seizures.

What are the causes of low oxygen levels?

low oxygen at high altitudes. significant blood loss. carbon monoxide and other poisonings. breathing difficulties that lower oxygen supply, like asthma or pneumonia. low blood flow to organs, such as from a stroke or heart problem. sudden injuries that affect breathing, such as near-drowning or choking.

Why is carbon monoxide poisoning so common?

This prevents your blood from effectively carrying oxygen throughout your body. Carbon monoxide poisoning is one of the most common causes of toxic anoxia. Carbon monoxide is a produced when gas is used as fuel. A faulty gas stove, fireplace, or furnace can cause carbon monoxide to fill your home.

How to find out if you have hypoxia?

In order to find out if any symptoms you’re having are related to hypoxia or anoxia, your doctor may perform a variety of tests. Blood tests, imaging tests, and tests of your nervous system can all provide clues as to both the cause and results of hypoxia and anoxia.

What are the complications of anoxic encephalopathy?

The complications of anoxic encephalopathy most commonly present as seizures, myoclonus, or permanent disability. Other complications may be due to the inability to treat effectively, such as difficulty maintaining temperature management or therapeutic hypothermia, or iatrogenic, such as rapid rewarming, infusion of excessive crystalloid causing metabolic abnormalities, or edema.

Why does anoxic brain injury occur?

Patients experience anoxic brain injury as a result of decreased oxygen delivery to the various regions of the brain; this may be due to cardiac arrest, where global hypoxia is a common observation or vascular injury or insult where a more localized area may be affected. In the case of post-arrest patients, an increase of body temperature, which may be neurologically mediated, beyond 37 degrees Celsius is associated with less favorable neurologic outcomes and appears to also worsen with every degree beyond 37 degrees Celsius. [2]

How long does it take to recover from anoxic encephalopathy?

Anoxic injury can present as an initial comatose state, where self-awareness and sleep-wake cycles are absent. Typically, in two to four weeks, a comatose patient will either show some recovery or may progress to a persistent vegetative state or brain death. The persistent vegetative state (PVS) lacks self-awareness, but it does maintain the sleep-wake cycle.[18] PVS does require meeting a set of diagnostic criteria for formal diagnosis from numerous repeat neurologic examinations.[19] If the requirements are not completely satisfied, the term minimally conscious state is used to describe the current neurological condition. [20]

What is anoxic encephalopathy?

Anoxic encephalopathy, or hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, is a process that begins with the cessation of cerebral blood flow to brain tissue, which most commonly results from poisoning (for example, carbon monoxide or drug overdose), vascular injury or insult, or cardiac arrest . Many patients who suffer anoxic brain injury expire without regaining full consciousness, and many patients have significantly poor neurologic outcomes. However, some advances are beginning to demonstrate the preservation of brain tissue, and there is a focus on identifying patients with the prospect of improving neurologic morbidity and mortality.[1]  There has been published data to indicate that there are predictors for poor outcome. However, evidence of factors suggestive of good prognosis or outcome has lagged. This activity will review the literature and practices concerning anoxic encephalopathy and brain injury.

How long after hypoxic insult can you see myoclonus?

Findings of post-hypoxic myoclonus may be observed usually within 24 hours after hypoxic insult has occurred. However, there are case reports available that describe delayed myoclonus even 48 hours after hypoxic insult due to sedation or paralytic medication use.[4]  One factor to consider is that post-hypoxic myoclonus is typically generalized and does not demonstrate particular focality. [5]

What are the factors that affect neurologic examination?

These factors include, but are not limited to, sedating medications, anticholinergic medications, paralytic drugs, metabolic abnormalities such as acute hepatic or renal failure, shock or continued irreversible hypoperfusion state, therapeutic hypothermia from targeted temperature management, and pathologic hypothermia. These conditions have a potential impact on cerebral consciousness as well as reflexes of the brainstem and do have the possibility to demonstrate false findings on detailed neurologic examination. Particularly on the initial evaluation of the patient, these considerations are paramount and should be actively pursued when considering the neurologic examination of an obtunded patient.

What is the initial course of management for anoxic encephalopathy?

The initial course of management is the stabilization of the patient upon presentation; this includes correction of metabolic abnormalities, initiation of antibiotics if septic, stabilization of hemodynamics, as well as a reversal of any possible toxic ingestions or overdose. Potential interventions regarding anoxic encephalopathy include post-arrest targeted temperature management as well as management of seizures should they present. It is also essential to commence discussion with family members regarding the potential for anoxic insult in preparation for permanent neurological damage or death.