title: Practical Assessment of Volume Status in Daily Practice.
abstract: Fluid therapy is considered the cornerstone of treatment for patients suffering from various medical ailments particularly in emergency and critical care situations where hypovolemia commonly occurs. The ability to accurately assess a patient's volume status is critical to the decision making process when synthesizing and implementing a fluid therapy plan. Both extremes, over supplementation or not supplementing enough fluid can be detrimental to the patient. Precisely assessing a patient's blood volume without access to advanced often complicated equipment and monitoring devices is challenging. The aim of this paper is to review the practical means and tools available to aide in estimating a patient's volume status.
authors.affiliation: Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Clinical Sciences, West Lafayette, IN, USA. Electronic address: johns357@purdue.edu.
authors.forename: Paula
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005440:Fluid Therapy / Q000662:veterinary*; D020896:Hypovolemia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000662:veterinary*; D014730:Veterinary Medicine
keywords: Volume status; hypervolemia; hypovolemia; physical exam