A Novel Contemporary Perspective Teaching Method for Interpretation of Various Acid base Disorders Citing with Examples

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The understanding of the basic concepts inArterial blood gas analysis and interpretation is an essentialskill required for all the medical students. Many creativemethods of teaching are available for the same yet sometimesit remains a challenging task. Usually, the three mainparameters like measured pH, pCO2 and HCO3 values areutilized for interpretation of various acid base disturbances.The aim of the current research study was to apply a novelrecently published arterial blood gas interpretation method forteaching purposes.Material and methods: In this newly developed method, thenet changes in pH is related to both the changes in respiratoryand non-respiratory (metabolic) component affecting the pH.A total of 90 arterial blood gas sample data’s were utilizedand classified into various groups. The changes in pH due torespiratory and non-respiratory component is calculated andcorrelated with the net changes in actual pH.Results: The magnitude and the changes in direction eitherpositive denoting the alkaline effect or negative denoting theacidic effect is very well observed in all the 90 cases and theresults are tabulated. The relationship between changes in pHdue to respiratory component with pCO2 and the changes inpH due to non-respiratory component with bicarbonate andstandard bicarbonate values were graphically analysed.Conclusion: The study concludes that it is much easier toobserve the changes in magnitude and direction in variousacid base disturbances which will help in better understandingof cases presenting with different pH, pCO2 and HCO3 values.