 What comes to nursing school explain in this video in the care plan help series where we relate the lab test results to nursing considerations and then apply them to a patient care scenario as you would do on a care plan. So today we're going to be look at sodium level and when we talk about sodium we always should think about patient hydration status because sodium and water always travel together and usually when one or the other one is off, it has something to do with hydration status. So we should be concerned about fluid volume excess and or fluid volume deficit and things that help us assess that are blood pressure and heart rate, the patient's mucus membranes, their eyes and nose most certainly. We can check for any edema in case there are stirred spacing and their fluid volume overloaded and then any history of renal disorders where the kidneys are not working properly and could cause an imbalance in the patient's sodium levels. Now we further want to assess the patient's level of consciousness because when the sodium is off it might affect the patient's mental status. So check out my Sodium imbalances video for the specifics there. We also want to check any kind of wounds the patient has because sodium as well as fluids can be lost from any large wounds and might cause an imbalance in the patient's wound, in the patient's sodium level. Medications that affect the sodium level, ACE inhibitors, ARBs, diuretics, anything that affects the kidney because we have this history of renal disorders and maybe if we don't even have that history of renal disorders, anything that affects the kidney and might throw off the sodium balance. Then certainly we want to check orthostatics to see if the patient is volume depleted. That'll help us assess a little bit better whether or not we need to give fluids or whether or not we're okay. And then sodium always relates to potassium. So we always want to keep an eye on the sodium as well as the potassium level and then also the patients are buming because that relates back to any kind of edema that the patient might have and leaking of fluid into that interstitial space. And again check out my video on sodium and the oncotic pressure where I explained that a little bit more. So now if we think about, let's say your clinical patient is a 45-year-old female with status post-colossusctomy, her past medical history includes diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and she's a smoker. So now when we think about the patient's sodium level and we've already assessed her hydration status, we want to check also and or administer IV fluids to bring that sodium up or get her more hydrated. We want to check in her oral intake, how much has she been taking in by mouth in terms of fluids as well as food. And this is the presence of any vomiting and or diarrhea as might happen after the colostectomy. And if that happens, we might want to give some anti-imidic, so kind of assess a little bit further there. If this was a large wound, then we would certainly need to consider a dressing change to keep the patient more comfortable and also limit the amount of sodium that's being lost. If the patient were positive on orthostatics, we could again give her IV fluids to bring that sodium back in balance and also help with any possible dehydration. And then regarding the past medical history, so we have the history of diabetes. We don't particularly have any history of renal disorders, but that could be a potential risk here if maybe this patient doesn't know about any renal disorders. But we can certainly check that out and in addition to the potassium and the albumin, we could also check the BUN and creatinine and check her current kidney function to see if there's anything going on there, underlying that has anything to do with the patient's sodium level. And so that's really how you tie in all the different pieces of the theoretical knowledge that you know into the labs and then the patient's specific care scenario. So please also check out the other videos in the Care Plan Help series where I go into the different details and also and always apply it to this specific example to help you guide you into how to analyze your patients in clinical on your care plans. Thanks for watching. See you soon.