Respiratory Reflection

Jillian, great post. It is strange that this subject came up this week. Just last week in the clinic that I work in we had a patient that was in acute respiratory distress. Currently, I work in a pediatric walk-in clinic and this time of year we generally start to see an increase in respiratory issues.

This particular patient came to the walk-in in the early morning having waken up about 4-5 hours prior feeling warm, not breathing well, and having a sore throat. By the time that the patient had gotten to the walk-in clinic the patients spO2 was 83%, HR in the upper 160's, and respiratory rate was 60. This patient was not in the "tripod positioning" that I had heard about, but was unable to lay down or bear his/her own weight (Epocrates, 2017). The patient was leaning on mother. The patient initially was not able to talk to the staff and not drooling. While at the clinic, oxygen was applied, the patient was kept calm, EMS was contacted right away, and a couple of nebulizers were given to child. The providers on site did not irritate the patient by examining the oral cavity or doing any activities that irritated the child. While the child was at the clinic the patient did not have any stridor, and seemed to get better with the albuterol treatments which did not lead the …show more content…
This patient had developed stridor when in the ER. Another sign that I seemed to noticed as you have mentioned Jillian is that when the EMS were taking the patient they did carry him/her on the stretcher and did have the patient lay back just a little. Just with this slight change in positioning the patient started to cough and spO2 started to drop. While in the ER a otolaryngolist was able to intubate the child and suspected epiglottitis as well. I do not know the outcome of this case because the child ended up having to be transferred out to a children's