High Urine Specific Gravity: Patient Care (Nursing)

00:01 And here's more of the fun part.

00:03 We get to apply it to patient care.

00:05 I love that when we give you some information, and then let you apply it to what you'll see in the clinical setting.

00:10 So Ms. Hydrashun's, urine specific gravity result is 1.035.

00:17 Anytime you see a value, what do you ask yourself? Is it high? Is it low? Is it normal? Well, this, yeah. That's high.

00:25 Now what does that mean, right? What does a urine specific gravity that is high mean? Could this indicate dehydration? Yeah, you know that it does.

00:37 The more dehydrated a patient is you're going to see that urine specific gravity number get bigger, it's going to move towards 1.030 and higher.

00:49 Ms. Dehydration is definitely higher than 1.030.

00:54 Now the next couple questions are a review.

00:56 So you should know these answers, if you don't, no problem.

00:59 You just don't know them yet.

01:02 But let me see if you can answer these.

01:04 What would you expect her blood pressure to be compared to her normal blood pressure? Talking about Ms. Hydrashun, the only other piece of information you have is a urine specific gravity of 1.035.

01:19 Right, she is dehydrated.

01:21 That means she has less volume in her intravascular space.

01:24 We would expect her blood pressure to be lower than normal for her.

01:29 Next question, what would you expect her heart rate to be compared to her normal? Right.

01:37 High.

01:37 Because when blood pressure drops, the body compensates by raising the heart rate as long as it can sustain that heart rate over a period of time.

01:46 All right, good deal.

01:47 Now these are the types of questions you want to make sure are clear in your mind to make sure you understand the concepts and you're likely to see this kind of content on an exam.

01:58 Now, what does urine look like when a patient is dehydrated? We have four -- count them, four beautiful bladders for you up there.

02:05 Now which one do you think is going to look like urine specific gravity that's pretty high? Yes.

02:12 Are you going to be on the lighter end or the darker end? Yes, you're going to be moving toward like more concentrated darker urine for a patient that's dehydrated.

02:22 Now their urine specific gravity will be higher, but you can visually look at your patient's urine and get a good idea if they're dehydrated.

02:30 You can even look at your own urine and see if you're dehydrated.

02:35 Now it's better to look at a sample in a cup rather than what you deposit in a toilet bowl, but the concept is the same.

02:41 The darker it is usually the more dehydrated it is.

02:45 We've got transparent to pale straw on one end, all the way up to severe dehydration on the other end.

02:52 Remember, it's a spectrum.

02:54 You can't just look at the color of a urine and determine the urine specific gravity number but you can get a good idea if the patient is well hydrated or is extremely dehydrated.