Paper 3: the acutely distressed patient

The acutely distressed patient is the one whose condition is deteriorating to the stage of respiratory failure or pulmonary insufficiency. I quote these definitions: Respiratory failure: "a failure to maintain normal blood gas homeostasis" (Sykes McNicol and Campbell, 1970); and pulmonary insufficiency: "when the lungs do not fully arterialise the blood passing through them, giving rise to lower than normal oxygen tensions and [/or] higher than normal carbon dioxide tensions in the arterial blood. These changes … ultimately result in abnormal cellular function" (Robin and Bromberg 1966).