Talk:Dehydration

Wiki Education assignment: WikiProject Medicine Fall 2024 UCF COM - Block 6

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 October 2024 and 17 November 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): An872654 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by An872654 (talk) 14:10, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

UCF COM WikiProject Medicine Work Plan

Hello everyone, I am a UCF medical student interested in this topic and will be working on editing this article. There are some changes I would like to make, so I wanted to give my proposed work plan in case anyone is interested:

1.       Citations: There are several facts presented in the article that are missing citations. I plan to add citations from secondary sources to ensure that every fact is at least backed by some source, ensuring nothing is accidentally presented as original research.

2.       Sources: Several of the citations come from non-peer reviewed sources such as blogs, editorials, and lay-person articles (i.e., Skeptical Inquirer, Wildwood Survival, WebMD). I plan to evaluate every source and replace the non-credible ones with peer reviewed secondary sources such as meta-analyses, systematic reviews, published health organization guidelines, or medical textbooks. All these new sources will be from within the last 5 years.

3.       Physical Examination: This section only discusses skin turgor and could benefit from more information including: Dry mucous membranes, Low arterial pressure, Tachycardia, and Low jugular venous pressure (measured by pulse height or ultrasound).

4.       Diagnosis: While the physical exam is useful for assessing dehydration, the article would be more thorough with the addition of “Blood Tests” and “Urine Tests” as paragraphs to discuss common laboratory findings including: Oliguria, BUN/creatinine, Hypernatremia, Hyponatremia, Urine osmolality, Urine sodium concentration, and Fractional excretion of sodium.

5.       Treatment. This section addresses oral and IV fluid resuscitation, but repeats some ideas, and could use more information about treating the underlying causes of dehydration including GI, renal, skin etiologies.

6.       Add Pathophysiology section. This may include discussion of the total body water, fluid compartments, serum and urine osmolality, and intra/extravascular changes due to different pathologies.

7.       Add Epidemiology section.

8.       Add Prognosis section.

9.       Add graphics. Some potential ideas could be the fluid compartments table or some physical exam findings like dry mucous membranes.

Please let me know if there are any additional edits that would help improve the quality of the article. Thanks! An872654 (talk) 18:33, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Here is my peer review of this editor's revisions to the article for the WikiProject Medicine course:

Hi! Overall, I think the article flows nicely. Though the article topic doesn't quite fit into a clear 'Manual of Style' category, I appreciate that you did incorporate many of the relevant subsections for a 'Disease/Disorder/Syndrome' category. In reading your workplan, I believe you achieved most of what you set out to accomplish: adding citations that were originally missing, adding appropriate sources, making the 'Mechanism'/'Physical Exam'/'Laboratory Tests' sections more comprehensive, and adding the 'Prognosis' section. I think the 'Treatment' section still doesn't quite address the treatment of underlying GI, renal, and skin etiologies, but I realize there is a link to a separate article ("Management of Dehydration") that focuses on this topic entirely. Here are a few suggestions I have for improvement:

• Under 'Diagnosis': The hyperlinked 'Portsmouth sign' at the bottom of the section could benefit from additional context/explanation in relation to the rest of the section
• Would suggest swapping out Citation #14 (WebMD) for a more credible source
• For visuals, the ultrasound video of blood vessels may be a better fit in in the 'Physical Exam' section - maybe even adding an 'Imaging' subsection here for it.
• Readability of the "Causes" and "Mechanism" section are post-graduate and grade 16, respectively, per the Hemingway Editor tool. Would suggest improving readability to a grade 8 or 9.

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding my peer review. Thank you for all your edits to improving this article! WiredOrpheus (talk) 20:53, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi WiredOrpheus, thank you for all of your helpful suggestions. I was able to fix most of the improvements you suggested, including:

- Replaced citation 14 (WebMD), as well as 5 more non peer reviewed sources.

- Moved the ultrasound video to the physical exam section.

- Improved the readability of the mechanism section to a grade 10 level.

If anyone wants to continue this work, then improving the readability of the article and expanding on the portsmouth sign would be a good place to start. Thanks!

An872654 (talk) 13:57, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Urine color figure

There is currently a figure that shows how urine color can be used as a diagnostic for dehydration. And the figure is cited from some official Australian health source, which is great.

My problem is that urine is translucent. If you're looking at a pool (or stream) of urine, then the depth of that pool (or thickness of that stream) will strongly influence your sense of its color. Even "clear" water exhibits this depth effect in deep swimming pools.

So it seems to me that the figure, although it has Wikipedia:Verifiability, lacks the context needed to actually make it have meaning. I propose that we delete it or replace it with a cited version that explains the necessary context. Mgnbar (talk) 21:37, 5 November 2024 (UTC)