In between patients who’ve been in a serious accident and terminally ill patients who need hospital-to-hospital transportation, medical flight paramedics may occasionally encounter patients who complain of feeling weak and generally ill. While it may be difficult to pinpoint what the issue might be in such cases, it’s important to take thorough assessments to ensure the condition isn’t caused by a life-threatening disease.
Possible Causes of General Illness Medical Flight Paramedics should Look Out for
If you respond to a patient who complains of feeling lethargic in general, try to assess them for the following conditions:
- Sepsis – Sepsis is caused by an infection and can lead to a significant dysfunction of the organs. But when you’re a first responder, you might face some issues as sepsis assessment usually requires lab results.
In a pre-hospital setting, you can still make some assessments that will rule out sepsis. There are three elements you need to look out for and if at least two of them are positive you need to consider that the patient is suffering from sepsis.
These elements are: If the respiratory rate is more than or equal to 22/min, if they have altered mentation with GCS less than or equal to 13, and/or if their systolic blood pressure is less than or equal to 100 mm Hg.
- Systemic inflammatory response syndrome – Medical flight paramedics should also make assessments for SIRS, which fairly easier for them to do than with sepsis. In this case you will look at a few criteria, out of which the patient might have SIRS if at least two of them are true.
The criteria are: if the heart rate is more than 90/min, if the respiratory rate is more than 20/min, if the white cell count is more than 12,000/mm³, if their temperature is higher than 38 degrees Celsius or less than 36 degrees Celsius, and/or if their PaCO2 is less than 32 mm Hg.
