BIOL124 - John Brittas Case Study - Human Body in Health and Disease and Nursing Assignment Help

Assignment Task -

Case study analysis

John Brittas is a 78-year-old male living at home with his wife and son. He is retired and very independent in his daily activities.

One weekend, John was enjoying coffee with his mates at a café when he experienced sudden onset dyspnoea and palpitations that started 40 minutes beforehand and persisted. His friends called an ambulance.

He had associated paraesthesia of the lower half of his face and back of his neck. He denied chest pain. There was no limb weakness. He was lightheaded but denied syncope. No diaphoresis, but slightly nauseated. He was feeling well before this episode.

At the Accident and Emergency (A & E) department, the following results were noted:

John’s medical records in the past history were significant with the following observations.

John was given loading dose of aspirin, 50 mg metoprolol orally, and 10 mmol of IV MgSO4.His heart rate slowly improved to <100/min before spontaneously reverting to sinus rhythm three hours later. He was discharged with prescription for metoprolol and follow up with his regular cardiologist

Two months after his admission to the hospital, John experiences some really weird changes that truly frighten him: he notices that he has lost his fine touch, proprioception, sense of body position, and vibration on the left side if his body, below the navel and including his left leg. Strangely, however, his pain and temperature sensations are still intact in the affected region. Conversely, he feels no pain or temperature on the right side of the body, below the belly button and involving his right leg, but proprioception and the sense of touch and vibration are still intact there. He also experiences motor symptoms: there is increased muscle tone and paralysis in the left leg but experiences no motor disturbances in the right leg. He has heard about the term TIA; in fact, he experienced it in 2011, and was now wondering if his symptoms may be explained by this pathology.

Prompted by his signs and symptoms, an MRI examination is performed, which reveals the presence of a tumour that presses on the left half of his spinal cord.

1: Cardiovascular system

As part of John’s clinical screening, an ECG was performed, but the ECG recordings were mixed up and the attending physician was provided with the ECG recording presented below. The physician was quite confident that this ECG did not originate from John as it had no sign of atrial fibrillation or myocardial ischemia. Nevertheless, he thought that this ECG may serve well for the education of BIOL124 students, and therefore insisted it should be included in the final worksheet. The ECG recording is presented in Figure 1.

(1) Label the ECG recording shown in Figure 1 and briefly explain what the individual waves represent.

(2) Identify what, in your opinion, the pacemaking centre of this heart is, and explain your answer.

(3) Identify the solitaire wave occurring after the two initial, complete ECG cycles, and describe how this unusual ECG pattern could be generated.

(4) Describe and explain the effect of sympathetic activity on cardiac output. You answer should describe how cardiac output changes in sympathetic activity, explain how this change is produced, name the type of receptor responsible for the effect of sympathetic activity on the heart, and identify the chemical messenger(s) acting on this receptor.

In 2012, John had chemotherapy and radiotherapy to treat cancer of the colon after a colostomy. Cancer therapy may have adverse effects on haemopoeisis (haematopoiesis) in the red bone marrow.

(5) Define haemopoeisis and discuss the reasons why some cancer patients become anaemic and prone to infections during the treatment cycle.

Nervous system

Given your understanding of the structure and function of the spinothalamic tract, dorsal column pathway, and corticospinal tract, discuss John’s neurological symptoms.

In your answer:

• Explain why the described sensory deficiencies occurred on the left or right side but           not on both sides.
• Identify the level of which segment of the spinal cord the tumour must have occurred at and explain your reasoning.
• Explain why motor symptoms affected the left leg only.
• Name the part of the central nervous system that accommodates the cell bodies of neurons whose descending axons are responsible for voluntary movements and are damaged by the tumour. When naming the part, be as specific as possible.
• Name the structures that accommodate the cell bodies of the first and second order neurons of the spinothalamic tract and dorsal column pathway.
• Explain why, despite their transient nature, TIAs need to be taken seriously.

Respiratory system

Figure 2A and 2B demonstrate the same structure—Part A is a low magnification image of the structure’s cross section whereas Part B is a high-magnification view of the epithelium lining the structure.

(1) Based on the images, identify the structure and explain what morphological features helped you identify it.

(2) Explain how structure and function are linked in the structure you identified under (Q1).To get maximum marks, you will need to discuss two structure-function correlations.

 (3) John’s oxygen saturation is noted as 96%. Explain the meaning of this observation and note if the presented value is physiological.

(4) John had asthma from childhood. During an asthma attack, one experiences increased parasympathetic activity on the airways. Discuss this effect in your answer, addressing the following points:

(a) Explain how airway radius and resistance change in increased parasympathetic activity. In your answer, specify the effector cell responsible for the observed changes and name the part of the airways where the change is the most prominent.

(b) Justify the use of EpiPen to treat severe asthma attacks. In your answer, name the active ingredient, specify the receptor molecules the active ingredient works on, identify the cell type that expresses this receptor, and describe the effect of receptor binding on the function of this cell. Explain if the active ingredient is an agonist or an antagonist.

Musculoskeletal system

John suffers from osteoarthritis of his left knee. He has been taking Nurofen to control pain and remain active to maintain musculoskeletal health as advised by his GP.

1. If he becomes physically inactive for a considerable time, John could suffer from muscle wasting. Discuss the pathogenesis of muscle wasting.
2. John’s wife, Elizabeth, suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. Discuss how the aetiology, pathogenesis and clinical signs and symptoms are different in the two types of arthritis (i.e., osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis).

(3) Figure 3 demonstrates the histology of a synovial joint. Name the structure labeled ‘Membrane’, describe its function, and briefly explain how the organisation of this structure is different to that of all other biological membranes.

This BIOL124 -  Nusing Assignment has been solved by our Nursing Health experts at My Uni Paper. Our Assignment Writing Experts are efficient to provide a fresh solution to this question. We are serving more than 10000+Students in Australia, UK & US by helping them to score HD in their academics. Our Experts are well trained to follow all marking rubrics & referencing style.

Be it a used or new solution, the quality of the work submitted by our assignment experts remains unhampered. You may continue to expect the same or even better quality with the used and new assignment solution files respectively. There’s one thing to be noticed that you could choose one between the two and acquire an HD either way. You could choose a new assignment solution file to get yourself an exclusive, plagiarism (with free Turnitin file), expert quality assignment or order an old solution file that was considered worthy of the highest distinction