Raising cardiogenic shock awareness at Salem Health
At Salem Hospital, staff are working to spread awareness on cardiogenic shock.
“Cardiogenic shock is a condition when the heart suddenly can’t pump blood to our vital organs, leading to organ failure and sometimes death,” said Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit nurse Emily Day, RN. “It’s very critical.”
Day said in her unit, patients who develop cardiogenic shock are often those admitted for a heart attack, decompensated heart failure or another cardiac condition like an arrythmia.
Raising awareness
The nurse notes that there is a lot of national research being done on this topic at the moment, and Salem Hospital staff want to be prepared.
Salem Health also adopted a scale to classify the severity of cardiogenic shock patients in 2022.
“We felt we could be doing better, and we want to pour our time and energy into educating our nurses so they’re more empowered to advocate for our patients,” Day said.
Symptoms to watch
Day said the first step is being aware of the symptoms.
“We break it down into three assessments when we’re looking at these patients: Their physical exam, vital signs and then their lab results,” she said. “Someone in cardiogenic shock might be cold to touch, there’s usually purple discoloration of their skin, sometimes they have unexplained abdominal pain, unexplained anxiety, fatigue, or confusion. Those are some of the physical symptoms you could expect.”
Other symptoms include low blood pressure, peeing less than usual, a fast or irregular heartbeat and trouble breathing.
“From the laboratory standpoint, we’re monitoring whether the organs are perfused, so looking at kidney and liver function, and whether or not there is a presence of lactic acidosis — which gets released from organs when they are not receiving enough oxygen,” Day said.
The nurse said awareness is the first step.
“I would love to see all Salem Health providers develop comfort with and understanding of the factors of the diseases process. I think we’re in the beginning stages of that, but I’m hopeful for continued engagement,” Day said.