Diuretics improve outcomes in patients with HF. NY-mode therapy may be superior for older adults at risk for falls. Priming patients before clinic visits leads to better patient outcomes.

A slew of smartphone apps are being developed to help nurses with auscultation skills. In addition, art and music are being used to help with auscultation too! Learn more in the NUrse Tutor Podcast.

Nursing Care of COVID Patients Part Two: Prompt Action to Decrease Complications. Be aware of the most common complications of COVID and how to assess and manage them.

Caring for patients with COVID-19 is challenging and requires a high level of assessment and skill from the nurse. In this episode discover why COVID is so challenging to assess and manage.

Can breath sounds diagnose COVID-19? Breath sound interpretation is an important part of your assessment. Models have been built to diagnose COVID-19 patients using breath sound analysis, and researchers are developing an app that analyzes breath sounds and potentially could diagnose COVID-19 and other types of breathing problems using a cell phone!

Immune Function in the Elderly covers:○      Immune function in the elderly has been in the news all year due to COVID-19○      Immune function decreases in the elderly for a variety of reasons

Fluids and Electrolytes: Sodium. This week, we tackle sodium. Let us talk a little bit about sodium. Sodium is the primary extracellular electrolyte This means it is the primary electrolyte outside of cells. So that gives us a lot of range. For this sodium debate. It can be in the interstitial spaces and in the bloodstream. Sodium maintains our osmotic pressure. Osmotic pressure is what pulls fluid back and forth. Sodium also helps to maintain our acid-base balance and helps maintain nerve conduction impulses. If the sodium level decreases, that will stimulate aldosterone secretion. If the sodium level increases, it will suppress aldosterone secretion. aldosterone helps us to regulate water. 

While clinicians focus on the primary respiratory symptoms of COVID-19 in the background, there are many other insidious consequences. For example, COVID infection causes the initiation of severe, uncontrollable inflammation. We talked about this last week: it's the systemic inflammatory response (SIRS. Three things happen with systemic inflammation: vasodilation, capillary permeability, and clotting. That third component is what we're going to talk about today. One consequence of severe inflammation is disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC). DIC causes both bleeding and clotting at the same time and can cause your patient to be a risk for developing venous thromboembolism (VTE) due to the clotting component.  Welcome to the Nurse Tutor PodCast! Here you will find tips and timesavers that are useful, practical, and understandable to help improve your nursing care. 

Why do people with COVID infections have cardiac complications? ○      With the #s of COVID infections on the rise will CCUs experience a higher than the average number of patients with MI, CHF, and other cardiac problems?○      How does the heart relate to a primary respiratory infection?Find the answers to these questions as we explore cardiac complications of COVID infections. The Nurse Tutor Podcast is brought to you by The Nurisng Prof, LLC.