Autonomic Dysreflexia: Symptoms and Treatment (Nursing)

00:00 So let's look at what you'll see in your patients when they're going into automatic dysreflexia.

00:05 They'll have problems with headaches, visual changes.

00:08 They may have some spots in their visual field.

00:10 They'll have a strong nasal congestion, it will be hard for them to breathe.

00:15 Their skin will look blotchy.

00:16 They'll have - be kind of - they'll feel really anxious.

00:19 They're kind of really tired and wiped out.

00:21 Their systolic and diastolic blood pressure are both going to raise.

00:25 Remember since autonomic systems gone awry when trying to fix it, you end up with this weird sweating especially in their face, neck and shoulders up higher.

00:36 Now, they'll have goosebumps below the area of the lesion, so you should see that usually on their lower legs.

00:42 The skin is flushing above the lesion especially in their face, neck, and shoulders.

00:47 Now, let's - this is just a long list of symptoms.

00:51 What I would love for you to do is pause for a minute, take these symptoms and go back through the steps and see how you can really make that stick in your mind.

01:04 Okay. Welcome back. Hopefully it took a little bit of time to line up those symptoms with the steps that you know that occur in autonomic dysreflexia with a spinal cord injury and noxious stimuli, like an overfilled bladder.

01:18 So what do we do when we're treating this? Well, you're gonna monitor that blood pressure very closely.

01:23 You can look to sit the patient up.

01:26 You can assess for signs of autonomic dysreflexia for the cause of it.

01:30 What could this possibly be? And this needs to happen quickly. Is it a wound? Is it a bladder? And usually you'll check the bladder first because that's a very common cause.

01:39 Take anything off that's constricting of the patient.

01:42 You want them to only have loose clothing on.

01:45 When we say go for that bladder first, look for skin breakdown.

01:49 Check for fecal impaction is another possibility.

01:52 So I would go for the most obvious ones first, bladder, skin breakdown, wounds, etc.

01:56 and then consider fecal impaction.

01:59 Because you're gonna wanna treat this with some pretty fast acting hypertensive medications as needed.

02:04 But deal with the underlying cause, the underlying noxious stimuli and also work with your healthcare provider about antihypertensive medications.