Environmental emergencies

An individual is considered to be hypothermic when his or her core body temperature falls below:

35C or 95F

Which of the following patients has signs and symptoms that are MOST indicative of heatstroke?

A 31-year-old male with hot and moist skin, tachycardia, and confusion

Which of the following individuals would be at GREATEST risk for developing hypothermia?

A 68-year-old female with a generalized infection

When rapidly cooling a semiconscious patient with heatstroke, you must stop the cooling process if the patient: Select one: A. becomes unresponsive. B. begins to shiver. C. becomes more alert. D. develops tachycardia.

B. begins to shiver.

How could the mammalian diving reflex protect the hypothermic patient who was submerged in water?

It slows the metabolic rate and decreases the body's oxygen demand

Which of the following statements regarding the brown recluse spider is correct?

Its venom is cytotoxic and causes severe local tissue destruction.

You are assessing a 24-year-old male who was bitten by a rattlesnake while hiking in the woods. Which of the following clinical signs would be MOST indicative of envenomation?

Progressive tissue swelling

The body loses heat to the environment through a process called:

Thermolysis

General management for a moderately hypothermic patient with a decreased level of consciousness may include all of the following, EXCEPT:

active internal rewarming.

When assessing a patient with a heat-related emergency, which of the following clinical signs would indicate thermolytic inadequacy?

altered mental status

Heatstroke occurs when the:

body is subjected to more heat than it can remove.

Breath-holding syncope" commonly occurs when a swimmer:

breathes deeply and rapidly before entering the water.

When a warm hand touches a cold object, heat passes directly from the body to the colder object. This is an example of:

conduction

A young male is wearing lightweight clothing and is standing outside in windy winter weather. He is losing heat to the environment mostly by:

convection

Treatment for a patient with a pit viper bite to an extremity and no signs of envenomation includes oxygen, as well as:

covering the area with a sterile dressing, splinting the extremity, and transporting.

You are dispatched to the residence of an 80-year-old female with a possible heat-related emergency. Your assessment reveals that she is semiconscious, has hot and dry skin, and signs of severe dehydration. You should:

move her to a cooler environment

Because heat always travels from a warm object to a cooler one, a person standing in a cold room will lose heat by:

radiation

In addition to causing local tissue destruction, the venom from a pit viper also causes:

spontaneous bleeding due to interference with the blood-clotting mechanisms.

When treating an unconscious, breathing patient with moderate to severe hypothermia, you must avoid rough handling in order to avoid inducing:

ventricular fibrillation