Paediatric sepsis
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Definition
Sepsis is a whole-body inflammatory reaction due to infection, usually organic pathogens in the blood and generally bacteria. The layman's term is blood poisoning and a term now falling out of favour is septicaemia because it was an unclear mix of bacteraemia (bacteria in the blood) and sepsis.
Pathophysiology
Fairly simple really. Bacteria in the blood cause an inflammatory response throughout the body.
Clinical Features
Any infection (though meningitis especially) in its later stages often leads to the sepsis . This is bad. Sepsis is always bad. As such, you need to know what the signs of sepsis are. So here they are:
- Negative change in vital signs
- Increased temp.
- BP↓
- Tachycardia
- Tachypnoea
- Limb pain
- Change in behaviour (beware quiet children - unless they're asleep)
- Rash (don't expect petechiae - these may not appear until the disease is untreatable)
- Cyanosis