Shock- Types, Causes And Treatments of Shock

Shock is known as the failure of the circulatory system to supply sufficient blood to peripheral tissues to meet metabolic requirements for oxygen and nutrient, and the incomplete ejection of metabolic waste from the affected tissues.

Shock is like ischemia but on a grand scale, ischemia occurs in a fraction, a specific area of tissue while the shock is a whole-body circulatory failure where blood flow in tissue is significantly low thereby leading to cellular injury and damage to organs if not attended to.

With shock the body isn’t getting enough blood into the tissue, Normally blood perfuses through tissues and delivers oxygen because there is enough pressure in the circulatory system to push it through, blood pressure automatically becomes a major determinant for the amount of blood perfusing through tissues.

Blood pressure Is determined by two components the “RESISTANCE OF BLOOD”, e.g blood length viscosity and diameter, and the “CARDINAL OUTPUT” which is the volume of blood pumped by the heart through the body person minute, while keeping all this in mind it is important to know that shock can be classified into 3 different categories.

Types of shock

• Hypovolemic Shock:

this is a type of shock induced by a low level of blood, note; it could either be non Hemorrhagic or  Hemorrhagic

Non-hemorrhagic kind of shock is a type of shock that isn’t induced by bleeding but is gotten from excessive loss of body fluid, like when an individual becomes stranded in a dry place and starts suffering from dehydration he’ll eventually lose a lot of body fluid as well as sweet, which would lead to a decreased blood volume to the point where it wouldn’t be enough to supply his body organs and it’ll lead to hypovolemic shock.

The hemorrhagic shock on the other hand is caused by the loss of a great deal of blood through a ruptured blood vessel caused either by trauma or at a point of surgery, if a record of 20 per cent of the total blood volume is lost the possibility of the body entering an irreversible state of hypovolemic shock is at an all-time high, when that litter of blood bequeaths from the circulation the total blood volume filling in the heart drops down.

An acute loss of blood reduces the amount of venous blood returning to the heart, this, in turn, reduces the cardiac output resulting in a drop in arterial blood pressure, pressure receptors in the wall of the aorta and carotid arteries triggers physiological reflexes to preserve the cardinal circulation.

Thus increasing heart rate to boost cardiac output and constricting small blood vessels to direct blood flow to essential organs if the blood loss persists this kind of body aegis would eventually fail and the manifestation of stroke becomes unequivocal.

• Cardiogenic shock(coronary thrombosis)

This occurs when the heart suffers trauma, like an injury this is very close to ischemia, the heart output reduces sufficiently and shock is produced without blood loss. In the coronary artery, the supply of blood is disrupted by a blood clot or vascular construction the damaged muscle may then lack the strength to force a moderate volume out of the heart with every stroke.

Once more, the minified output triggers baroreceptors to restrict peripheral circulation. The blood clots that block blood circumvolution and increase fluid that surrounds and cushion the heart can also impair the pumping of the heart to cause shock. This at times is categorized as an obstructive shock

• Distributive Shock:

This is caused by the leakage or the widening of peripheral blood vessels if arteries dilate the vascular resistance to blood flow goes down and blood pressure goes down leading to less perfusion and distribution of blood to organs and tissues.

The most common type of distributive shock is a septic shock from pathogens in the blood, this type of shock is caused by Endotoxins(lipopolysaccharide) found in the outer membrane of grand negative bacterial, it causes a cataclysm of events that ultimately leads to lower perfusion.

Aside from the septic shock, two other subcategories fall under the distributive shock are; Anaphylactic shock, which is caused by allergic reactions that results in low blood pressure and neurogenic shock, caused by damages done to the nervous system which would then results in the ability of the body to control blood pressure.

The treatment of shock always depends on the cause,  the first step to take while handling such a situation is to identify what resulted in the shock, as several possible causes could coexist in a single patient especially following an accident.

But in general, the goal is to stabilize blood pressure so that vital organs like the heart and the brain can be perfused with blood in other to accomplish such fluid replacement (e.g blood transfusion) must be ensured, and medications that increase heart contractility, retain fluids and causes vasoconstriction should be administered.