How To Remember Those "Classes of Hemorrhage"
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The Advanced Trauma Life Support course lists āclasses of hemorrhageā, and various other sources list a similar classification for shock. Iāve not been able to pinpoint where these concepts came from, exactly. But I am sure of one thing:Ā you will be tested on it at some point in your lifetime.
Hereās the table used by the ATLS course:
The question you will always be asked is:
What class of hemorrhage (or what % of blood volume loss) is the first to demonstrate systolic hypotension?
This is important because prehospital providers and those in the ED typically rely on systolic blood pressure to figure out if their patient is in trouble.
The answer is Class III, or 30-40%. But how do you remember the damn percentages?
Itās easy! The numbers are all tennis scores. Hereās how to remember them:
Class I up to 15% Love ā 15 Class II 15-30% 15 ā 30 Class III 30-40 30 ā 40 Class IV >40% Game (almost) over!
Bottom line: Never miss that question again!
Source: http://thetraumapro.com/2016/10/24/how-to-remember-those-classes-of-hemorrhage/
