Model in Brazil loses hands and feet - Sepsis

Sad story and again talks about an undiagnosed urinary infection that lead to Sepsis. Perhaps we will hear more but I am curious if some antibiotics would have taken care of the situation? Again, speaking from the blind side all the details are not given but normally for an infection, some type of antibiotic treatment usually follows?

The picture is from a prior post about a woman in New York who lost both hands and feet and survived Sepsis. Sepsis is the 10th leading cause of death in the US.

From a prior post:

Also Vanderbilt Medical Center created a Microsoft technology solution to quickly identify Sepsis and you can read more here, which entails a solution with Server 2008, SQL server and the use of Silverlight to give clinicians a clear and active visual to detect immediately before the condition would progress any further without immediate attention.

Healthcare jumping out with Server 2008 and all the updated components for the application to track Sepsis, a systemic inflammatory response to infection which can progress to circulatory system dysfunction, multiple organ failure, and eventually death.

The Vanderbilt story above is somewhat relative to where technology and medical records come in to play. By using the dynamic imaging in Silverlight, it gives a quick and definitive picture immediately to the clinical staff in the ICU to determine the onset of Sepsis as it starts, something that can be helpful anywhere. We have the technology available and needs to have some if this implemented quickly to save lives. The story of the model is so sad in the fact that perhaps by the time she returned for help, the infection of the blood had gone too far.

A picture is worth 1000 words and I can’t help but think that if the dynamic images were available with a quick glance and look for physicians, how much it could be and help with diagnosis and treatment plans for physicians instead of having to rely text or handwritten information only.

Some of the physicians who read here may have more to add to that. If a patient is in the ICU, good to know a dynamic technology can help with alerting staff immediately to the onset with the work done at Vanderbilt, and something once more to add to thinking about a dynamic common user interface. Vanderbilt offers their knowledge and assistance on their Silverlight solution for the ICU to any hospital.

Hope we can all someday get together and work as a team with technology and healthcare so we all can benefit. BD

(CNN) -- During one beauty pageant, Brazilian model Mariana Bridi, 20, confided in friends that she was "living the dream."
Now she's fighting for her life in intensive care in a hospital in the Brazilian city of Serra, following a series of operations to bring a potentially fatal infection under control.

In the last week, she's had both hands and feet amputated. Doctors removed both kidneys and in the most recent surgery last night removed part of her stomach.

"They say her situation is very critical and that her chances (of survival) are not really significant, but she keeps on surprising everyone," Henrique Fontes, executive director of Miss World Brazil told CNN.

Mariana first sought medical advice after feeling ill in late December. Doctors said she had kidney stones but her condition soon worsened.

Bridi was eventually diagnosed as suffering a urinary tract infection. By the time the infection was detected it had developed into septicemia -- an infection of the blood.

Doctors amputate Brazilian model's hands, feet - CNN.com

2 comments :

GrahamJanuary 24, 2009 at 2:15 PM
This poor woman has just died ... her infection was resistant to antibiotics.

She had bilateral renal stones and stones are a source of mixed bacterial infections which can be difficult to eradicate.
Medical QuackJanuary 24, 2009 at 7:58 PM
Yes I saw that today, very sad.