Chapter 21, Problem 2IA

Summary Introduction

To determine:

What changes might occur in the patient’s extracellular fluid compartments, if the right ventricle of a patient’s heart is failing, increasing the systemic venous pressure?

Introduction:

Extracellular fluid is the fluid that is present outside the cell membrane of the all the body cells. Extracellular fluid contains a high concentration of sodium, chloride, and bicarbonate ions. The concentration of potassium, magnesium, sulfate, phosphate and calcium ions are lower in the extracellular fluid. The concentration of plasma is higher than the concentration of proteins in the extracellular fluids.