Understanding Sepsis: What is it?

In this video, Shamiram Feinglass, M.D., M.P.H, and chief medical officer at Beckman Coulter, explains the fundamentals of understanding Sepsis.

#Sepsis is the body's overwhelming response to infection. The challenge with sepsis is that it comes on quickly, what happens is, you get an infection, the body is responding to it, but the body can't fight it. So it keeps mounting an immune response, it keeps pushing forward, moving white cells forward, trying to fight this infection.

The actual symptoms of sepsis are often diagnosed by a combination of four things:

1. We look at temperature, do they have a really high temperature, but also do they have a surprisingly low temperature.

2. The next thing is an infection, did they have an infection, do they have any source of infection. Do they have a urinary tract infection, did they fall, do they have an unhealed wound. Is it bacterial, is it fungal, is it viral, so what infection do they have?

3. You will also see, mental status changes. People will seem confused, they won't quite know what's going on especially in the elderly, this is one of the number one ways someone presents with sepsis.

4. And then finally, they will feel horrible, people who have recovered from sepsis
say this is the worse this they have ever felt. Every single muscle hurts, everything just feels horrible.

People die of sepsis every day. Sepsis is a horrible disease. Any way we can prevent someone from becoming septic, from whatever infection they have is really important.

In the battle to #SolveSepsis, every moment counts. For more information about how Beckman Coulter's is helping to solve sepsis, please visit www.BeckmanCoulter.com/sepsis

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