Introduction to Cholelithiasis and Cholecystitis (Nursing)

00:00 Hi, welcome to our video series on the gall bladder.

00:03 In this portion of the video series, we're gonna take a look at cholelithiasis and cholecystitis or easier for me to say, stones and inflammation.

00:15 Now, we're gonna start with a little word play.

00:17 'Chole' means bile or gall and is used in lots of other words.

00:21 So, cholesterol. Cholesterol is an important part of cell membranes and other steroid compounds.

00:29 So, sometimes it gets a bad rep in the media, but your body needs a certain amount of cholesterol.

00:35 The liver makes cholesterol and cholesterol is one of the six parts of bile.

00:41 So, underline the word 'chole' part of the word here and write it in as a 'made in the liver' part of the bile.

00:51 Good deal. Let's do our next chole word. Cholecystitis.

00:56 Now, you look at that, that's the gallbladder that is inflamed.

01:01 The gallbladder is a cyst, it's an open sac, and -itis means inflammation.

01:07 So, we know that chole means bile, cyst is that open cyst, and itis means inflammation.

01:14 Cholecystectomy means for it to be removed.

01:18 So, chole is used in cholesterol, cholecystitis, and cholecystectomy.

01:25 Whenever you see those letters together at the end of a word, ectomy, that means removal.

01:32 Okay, let's start with cholelithiasis.

01:35 So, you know it's gonna have to do with the gallbladder when we're talking about stones because cholelithiasis is a presence of one or more gallstones in the gallbladder.

01:44 Now, I've got a picture there for you to kinda get an idea, kind of a preview of what is to come.

01:49 Now, it's gonna draw in other structures.

01:52 I would draw the liver right up there at the top, right? Because the liver makes bile and those hepatocytes makes it, sends it out in the bile duct, it drains down into the bile duct, and it's stored in the gallbladder.

02:08 Now, it will move on down that hepatobiliary system 'til it ends up where the pancreas connects and it meets the small intestine.

02:16 But I've got some stones in there.

02:18 The reason I talked about travel is look what's in the gallbladder.

02:22 Those are clearly stones. That's cholelithiasis, lith, referring to the stone.

02:28 So, we've got that there in the gallbladder, but look up in the neck of the gallbladder.

02:32 Yeah, there's a stone right there. That's gonna be a problem.

02:36 Trace down there and you'll see yet another stone.

02:40 That's also going to be problematic.

02:43 Remember, when you eat food, it goes in your mouth, down to your stomach, when that food enters your small intestine, the gallbladder is stimulated to contract.

02:52 If we've got blockages, if those stones are causing blockages, we're gonna have likely pain in your patient or at the very least, a problem.

03:02 Oh, that's what you call an angry gallbladder.

03:07 See how it's red and you have those lines on either side? This is an inflamed gallbladder. Cholecystitis refers to the inflammation.

03:17 So, cholecystitis is the inflammation of the gallbladder.

03:21 You see it right there. It is angry and red.

03:25 Now, this can be caused as a complication of gallstones, which we just showed you previously, or sludge.

03:32 So, look down there kind of in the corner of that angry, angry gallbladder.

03:36 You don't see the defined stones that you saw on the previous gallbladder.

03:40 That one has stones and some sludge in there.

03:44 Sludge is on its way to eventually becoming stones, but it's not quite there yet.

03:49 So, you can end up with cholecystitis because of gallstones, sludge, or for some reason, you have a structural or functional disorder of the gallbladder.

04:00 See, the longer that bile hangs out in the gallbladder, it's gonna get more and more and more concentrated.

04:09 It's not supposed to stay there forever and when it stays there too long, you end up with these types of complications and inflammation.