Bioscience: Tetanus essay

Daily life activities may lead to injuries to the tissues of the body. Therefore, it is a common occurrence, and it is almost impossible to avoid, especially if a person is involved with physical labor. If an injury occurs, the skin gets broken, and the underlying tissues of the body get hurt. In most cases, it is an open wound. The majority of these wounds get treated in the home environment. Sharp tools or objects are the main cause of this type of wounds. Some rare occasions, especially from serious accidents like motor vehicle collisions, can cause severe bleeding. Such instances require immediate professional medical attention. The key danger of such injuries is an increased risk to acquire infections. Consequently, it is vital to analyze the case study involving wound infection and its treatment since such cases are very common in medical practice.

Question One

Reasons for the Tetanus Booster Vaccine Injection

Tetanus is caused by a bacterium entering the body through a broken skin. Mary got injured while digging and acquired a deep wound that needed to be sutured. Before suturing, it was of great benefit for her to receive a tetanus booster vaccine. There are several reasons under which a medical provider decides to give a vaccine to the patient. First, Mary is aged, which requires receiving a booster vaccine for tetanus after every ten years (Department of Health, 2017). Since she had not been vaccinated in the previous ten years, the nurse gave her a booster vaccine for tetanus. Secondly, Mary had a deep wound, which was acquired while gardening. The digging of compost increases the chance of getting infected by the tetanus bacteria, which resides in the soil. Therefore, her treatment, which occurred within a forty-eight-hour period after the injury, was of great medical benefit to her (Department of Health, 2017). Medical personnel were encouraged to administer a booster vaccine owing to the environmental factors, which Mary was subjected to, and the deep wound acquired henceforth. The tetanus disease can be easily prevented by a booster vaccine rather than by treatment, after it has established itself in the body.

 

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Question Two

Wound Observations: Physiological Basis

A visit to the medical center revealed side effects after the initial treatment of the wound. There was an odorous discharge that was also purulent. This thick liquid is an indication of infection or inflammation (Craft, Gordon, Huether, McCance, & Brashers, 2014). The exudate might have a color. However, since the patient was vaccinated in time, it will indicate the healing process of the wound, which is normal when the exudate is colorless. During the inflammatory stage, there is vasodilation caused by the body’s inflammatory mediators. Another observation made was swelling of the tissue around the wound. Swelling can be referred to as edema. Mary had her wound sutured. Therefore, there occurred a trapping of body fluid leaked by blood vessels around and within the wound area. Therefore, the sutures did not provide required permeability for the fluid to escape (Craft et al., 2014). The last observation indicated the wound edges were hot and red in color. It is an indication of an infection in and around the wound area. The bacteria in the wound were causing the changes of the skin color. At the same time, a healing wound needs to have pink skin color around the edges.

Question Three

Fever Development

The entry of pathogens into the body activates the immune system to fight against them. The body has its own mechanisms of getting rid of bacteria or viral infections. However, it is the lab tests that can differentiate the disease causing organism. The case of Mary is very specific on bacterial infection likelihood. The body temperature increases to have advantage against the bacteria that cause tetanus.

Therefore, an increase in temperature lowers the ability of the tetanus bacteria to replicate in the body systems of Mary. It is expected that bacterial infection in the body will be fought by the immune system. The reason for such reaction is the severe harm bacteria cause to the body tissues and the systems. When the temperature is high, the bacteria get an environment which is not favorable to replicate, and then pyrogens will be produced. They will flow in the blood and will be detected by the hypothalamus. In return, it triggers the process and tells the system of the body to produce more heat which will be retained (Marieb & Hoehn, 2015). In addition, an increased temperature of the body is not healthy. The main benefits attained from fever are the creation of an environment not sustaining the tetanus bacteria and the indication to the patient and the medical personnel that an infection is being established.

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Question Four

Endogenous and Exogenous Contamination Sources

Exogenous infections come from external sources, not within the body of the patient. For instance, Mary has tetanus bacteria on the skin and tissues of her right calf. It is a cross-infection from the soil, a source of the bacteria which will thereafter spread to the rest of the body parts (Lee & Bishop, 2015). The patient was doing her normal farming routine of digging compost in her garden. Accidentally, she hurt her right calf using the tool she was digging with. It broke the skin of her right calf and exposed it to the tetanus bacteria which reside in the soil. The bacteria therefore could easy access the body, thus causing an infection. On the other hand, an endogenous contamination of the wound by S. aureus occurs when the bacteria naturally reside in a closed system of the body and then enter a sterile system, for example after ingestion of the bacteria with contaminated food. The bacteria will then produce toxins within the gastrointestinal tract that will later be spread to other body parts (Marieb & Hoehn, 2015). They might not cause immediate harm since the body might have an increased immunity. However, in subsequent days, when the immunity is lower, the bacteria will then cause infections. The type of infection will depend on the body part involved. It might be within the gastrointestinal system or another body part.

Question Five

Appropriateness of Augmentin

Augmentin consists of clavulanate potassium and amoxicillin. The prescription of this drug is helpful to the patient since the absorption is very fast within a patient’s gastrointestinal tract (Bullock & Manias, 2017). Moreover, the drug is not affected by the diet conditions of the patient. The drug works in both states: whether the patient takes the prescribed dosage of the amoxicillin content before or after eating. What makes Augmentin appropriate is that the clavulanate potassium component is highly absorbed into the body when the patient takes the drug with food.

The main reason for prescribing Augmentin is to enable increased activity of amoxicillin against the S. aureus bacteria that causes tetanus. A tetanus bacterium produces an enzyme that hydrolyses amoxicillin, hence rendering it ineffective in breaking down the bacteria. Therefore, clavunate potassium contained in the Augmentin drug plays the irreversible inhibition role blocking the hydrolysis process against the amoxicillin component of the similar drug. The result is an extended spectrum of the amoxicillin antimicrobial drug (Adams, Holland, & Urban, 2016). However, clavunate potassium lacks the antimicrobial activity functionality.