Christina Rafano covers pneumonia for NCLEX prep: how mucus and edema block gas exchange, why respiratory and heart rates spike, and the critical nursing step of drawing cultures before giving antibiotics.
Here are some key NCLEX points to know for pneumonia. This is an infection in the lungs that decreases gas exchange through mucus buildup and edema in those lungs. So this is going to increase the respiratory rate and the heart rate and decrease oxygen saturation. Now here's the key the heart and the lungs are best friends. Anytime the lungs are in trouble, the heart is going to try to compensate for that and help out. So when that respiratory rate increases and the heart sees that the lungs are in trouble, the heart is going to increase as well to try to get more blood to the body. Now, a key NCLEX point that you've got to know is that anytime you have an infection, we want to draw cultures first before giving antibiotics. That way we can figure out what is causing the infection before we kill it. We want to do the culture first.
