Hyponatraemia: A Practical Approach to Management

Abstract

Hyponatraemia, an electrolyte disorder is not an infrequent occurrence in hospitalized patients. Low sodium levels from the laboratory are frequently regarded as laboratory error instead of as a stimulus to seek for the clinical feature with a view to correcting the imbalance. Some of the patients lost on the wards may have died from undetected and untreated hyponatraemia which has a mortality of 5% - 10% depending on severity and rapidity of onset. The asymptomatic cases may not require immediate correction of their sodium levels. Attempts should be made to identify and treat the causes(s). The acute symptomatic cases may require immediate and aggressive correction of the imbalance within 48hours. Careful and slow correction is the norm for the chronic symptomatic cases to avoid neurological and other complications of treatment.



Nigerian Medical Practitioner Vol.46(3) 2004: 46-49