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UNDER ONE IN three Irish people have an accurate understanding of what sepsis is, a new study has found.
The new research carried out by Behaviour and Attitudes for RCSI and the Rory Staunton Foundation for sepsis prevention found that in comparison, 55% of people in the US understand what sepsis is.
Sepsis, otherwise known as blood poisoning, is a silent killer because it is unpredictable, rapid and can go undiagnosed due to its non-specific signs and symptoms, according to the RCSI.
Sepsis happens when a person’s body has an overwhelming and life-threatening response to an infection, such as pneumonia, flu or a urinary tract infection. It has been described as an “overactive and toxic response to an infection”, which can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and in some cases, death.
Sepsis is a bigger killer than heart attack, lung cancer or breast cancer. There were almost 15,000 diagnosed cases of sepsis in Ireland in 2016 resulting in 3,000 deaths, and 60% of all deaths in hospital are related to a sepsis infection.
The research also found:
Professor Steve Kerrigan, Associate Professor in Pharmacology at RCSI and inventor of InnovoSep, a potential new breakthrough therapy in the fight against sepsis, said that awareness is what will really save lives.
“Every delay of one hour in starting treatment increases the risk of death by 8%. Sepsis can kill in 12 hours and that is why it is so critical that everyone in the community is empowered with the information to ask ‘could it be sepsis?’. These four words could save your life”.
“Sepsis does not discriminate. Everyone, including the youngest and fittest of us, is potentially susceptible.”
Kerrigan spoke at an RCSI MyHealth public lecture last week which aimed to educate people about the signs and symptoms of sepsis. He explained that the symptoms of sepsis mimic those of the flu – high temperature, rapid heart rate, rapid breathing, pain, pale or mottled skin, and feeling generally very sick. The main difference between sepsis symptoms and flu is that sepsis will come on very quickly whereas flu comes on over days.
A group led by Kerrigan has discovered a potential breakthrough drug, InnovoSep, which could prevent sepsis from occurring in at-risk people or prevent it progressing to a life threatening situation.
Kerrigan said that “this treatment has significant potential but it’s also important for people to be aware that there are simple things we can do to reduce the risk of sepsis occurring.
“Every cut, scrape or break in the skin can cause infection. All wounds need to cleaned quickly with clean water. If you have a wound that can’t close, then you most likely need stitches and you should get to a hospital.”
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I now know lots of statistics about it but the article doesn’t actually say WHAT it is. Let me help- Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. Common signs and symptoms include fever, increased heart rate, increased breathing rate, and confusion.
@Ciarán McPhillips: Thank you Ciarán. It’s a pretty ridiculous oversight in the article. It’s like saying, “You need to push one of these buttons. One could kill you, the other one won’t. That’s a bit bad isn’t it? Ah well. Best of luck. Bye now. Bye bye”
@Deepee: Which button Deepee, which button?!!!
@Gerard McConnell: you haven’t even been told about the button??? I’d love to tell you Gerard, but I can’t
@Deepee: enough procrastination. I’ve decided. I’m going to press his b
My mother is currently in hospital having developed sepsis three weeks ago today. She had total organ failure,ended up in a coma for a week, got through that had another complication and needed life saving surgery and put back into a coma for the second time. The doctors don’t know how she is still alive.
We as a family will never be the same after all we have gone through after witnessing how rapid sepsis took over her body,the amount of times the team called us in to a room telling us to prepare for the worst. She is very lucky to be alive and if it wasn’t for the amazing team in resus and ICU in the Lourdes hospital she wouldn’t be here. God knows when she will get out of hospital and when she does she will never be the same person. It is not like the flu.
Sepsis very nearly took our dad from us just before Christmas last year. He went into hospital in September with a bladder infection, and next thing (in the 12hrs from when he presented in A&E) he went from bad to worse and was in a coma. 3 surgeries, countless antibiotics, transfusions and so much more later, we were prepared for the worst and I will never forget how helpless we all felt – 2 at a time allowed into ICU, whispering through tears begging our dad to wake up. My sister was 2 weeks from having her first baby at the same time he became ill, and it really seemed as though he was going to go and the baby was going to come at the same time. Never want to see my mother go through anything like that again.
Thanks to the absolutely incredible and superhero care provided by the ICU in Naas hospital, he eventually responded to treatment, woke up after 2 weeks and we had him home just before Christmas. He still has a lot of recovery to do, but I would beg every reader of this article to take sepsis extremely seriously. I doubted its severity myself until it happened to my family and it is absolute hell on earth. 3 in 10 people survived what happened to my father – sepsis is very, very serious.
@Rachel: any idea how it happened? open wound or cut?
@Rear Admiral: she said it began with a bladder infection. You don’t need an open wound or cut to develop sepsis (article is misleading) – it can develop from any infection.
The big takeaway in this article for me was that “60% of all deaths in hospital are related to a sepsis infection”. Why are our hospitals so rife with infection??
Sepsis isn’t a bigger killer that heart disease. There’s on average 5000 fatal heart attacks every year vs 3000 sepsis deaths.
Heart attack survival rate if you’re not already in hospital is only 10%
@Me_a_monkey: You’re confusing a heart attack (myocardial infarction) with cardiac arrest (heart stops beating). It’s important that people don’t get the wrong information. There is a very good chance of recovery from a heart attack if the patient gets to a hospital quickly.
@Mary Ryan: And in recent years there appears to be a drive to say that there’s an enormous increase in sepsis cases, bearing in mind 1 in 4 of these are believed to be fatal. I believe there were just over 14,000 cases of sepsis in 2016, if 25% were fatal and it’s believed there are 10,000 cardiac related deaths each year then the figures don’t lie.
@Mary Ryan: no, I’m not.
Check the CSO figures for 2016.
I know the difference between a heart attack and cardiac arrest. If you want to get nutty about it people done die from myocardial infarction, they die from cardiac arrest.
1,818 deaths alone last year from “acute myocardial infarction”. Under a total of 4505 heart despise related deaths.
http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-vsys/vitalstatisticsyearlysummary2016/
The cso don’t even list sepsis on the site.
@Me_a_monkey: The HSE appear to have the figure you want, these seem to agree with those quoted by Boyne above;
Apparently it’s cured by having an abortion. As a man, I hope I never get it.
@SweepTheLeg: no, the fact is it has a higher chance of occuring during pregnancy. Don’t politicise medicine.
@Shannon Mcg: The death from sepsis of a mother in a Galway hospital was cruelly used by the pro abortion brigade.
The survey is unclear. I knew it was blood poisoning caused by infection but does that count as knowing what it really is?
People don’t realise how serious a condition it is. A simple urinary tract infection which left untreated can get out of control and turn into a septic infection called urosepsis travelling around the body. It happened to a family member and she became so ill with it, weak, delusional and it took the hospital several attempts using different i.v. antibiotics to get it under control. It was touch and go for a while. I remember the creatinine levels in the kidneys were 550 when normal levels are something like 88-128.
we have a short time and speed is the key, It takes about 20 secs to get an Iv line in, bring a urine specimen with you, a dip stick takes a few seconds better still ask you pharmacy for a box of multistix 10, leucocytes, nitrates, protien and blood are indicators specific gravity will let you know if you are dehydrated, our hospitals are overcrowded to the point that there is a good chance that crypto is been coughed up on to open wounds, and we have some bizzar rules
It’s like having the flu. go home and take a lemsip.
@Sean Conway: Sean it’s not like having the flu!
@techman: The simptoms are similar. i know about it my son had it. and that is what his GP told him to do.
@Sean Conway: I don’t think so. I’m not going to go into a long protracted explanation, but basically I have a condition which leaves me prone to sepsis, I’ve had it 4 times so far. Each time, except one in which I was already in hospital, I was unconscious and brought in by ambulance, believe me it’s nothing like flu.
@Sean Conway: It is most certainly not anything like having the flu. I am sorry to hear that your son contracted it…my father survived it in the latter part of 2017 and is still recovering. Should he have just simply “gone home and taken a lemsip” he would no longer be with us today. Having spent hours, both day and night at my fathers bedside in hospital constantly in fear of a decline in his vitals and during the lows praying that at any moment he will start to improve, watching a strong the man go from fit, strong and healthy to weak, lifeless and vulnerable, requiring constant monitoring and medical treatment – I can certainly say it is nothing like the flu. I appreciate that influenza can/has/will kill people of all ages, both comprised due to other illness and those who had no underlying issues. But the ignorance in your comment clearly represents the lack of awareness and knowledge into sepsis in the general population. You seem to know that your son has sepsis yet your GP recommended down time and a lemsip? Time to register with a new GP and thank every lucky star that your child survived. Without treatment of the infection be it viral, bacterial or something else, sepsis cannot resolve with paracetamol???
Please spare such ignorant comments on a public forum on such a topical and serious issue…
are there wall mounted anti viral hand sanitizer spray dispensers in Irish hospitals in every room?
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