Sepsis survivors may have ongoing healthcare needs that require coordination after discharge. Discharge planning for sepsis patients can support the management of new and persisting physical, cognitive and mental health issues, and enhance patient recovery.
You may need to stay in hospital for several weeks.
While most patients with sepsis recover fully, those patients who go on to develop severe complications such as septic shock may need additional support and possibly rehabilitation on their road to recovery. Managing sepsis at home, after discharge from the hospital includes addressing several factors.
On average, the recovery period from this condition takes about three to ten days, depending on the appropriate treatment response, including medication.
Many people who survive sepsis recover completely and their lives return to normal. However, as with some other illnesses requiring intensive medical care, some patients have long-term effects.
Ideally, antibiotic treatment should start within an hour of diagnosis. Intravenous antibiotics are usually replaced by tablets after 2 to 4 days. You may have to take them for 7 to 10 days or longer, depending on the severity of your condition.
The risk of dying from sepsis increases by as much as 8% for every hour of delayed treatment. On average, approximately 30% of patients diagnosed with severe sepsis do not survive.
Many patients who survive severe sepsis recover completely, and their lives return to normal. But some people can have permanent organ damage. For example, in someone who already has impaired kidneys, sepsis can lead to kidney failure that requires lifelong dialysis.
As sepsis worsens, blood flow to vital organs, such as your brain, heart and kidneys, becomes impaired. Sepsis may cause abnormal blood clotting that results in small clots or burst blood vessels that damage or destroy tissues. Most people recover from mild sepsis, but the mortality rate for septic shock is about 40%.
Now to answer the question many people are asking: “is sepsis contagious?” The answer is no, sepsis is not contagious. You cannot “catch” sepsis from another person, since sepsis is not an infection; rather, it is the body's extreme response to an infection. However, the underlying infection may be contagious.
Sepsis isn't contagious and can't be transmitted from person to person, including between children, after death or through sexual contact. However, sepsis does spread throughout the body via the bloodstream.
Treatment. Sometimes surgery is required to remove tissue damaged by the infection. Healthcare professionals should treat sepsis with antibiotics as soon as possible. Antibiotics are critical tools for treating life-threatening infections, like those that can lead to sepsis.
The condition can arise suddenly and progress quickly, and it's often hard to recognize. Sepsis was once commonly known as “blood poisoning.” It was almost always deadly. Today, even with early treatment, sepsis kills about 1 in 5 affected people.
Bacterial infections cause most cases of sepsis. Sepsis can also be a result of other infections, including viral infections, such as COVID-19 or influenza, or fungal infections.
It's known that many patients die in the months and years after sepsis. But no one has known if this increased risk of death (in the 30 days to 2 years after sepsis) is because of sepsis itself, or because of the pre-existing health conditions the patient had before acquiring the complication.
It is essential that the treatment begin as early as possible. The chance of sepsis progressing to severe sepsis and septic shock, causing death, rises by 4% to 9% for every hour treatment is delayed. Severe sepsis occurs when one or more of your organs stop working effectively.
"When an infection reaches a certain point, this can happen in a matter of hours." Sepsis usually starts out as an infection in just one part of the body, such as a skin wound or a urinary tract infection, Tracey says.
The red flag symptoms of sepsis are: New onset of confusion or altered mental state. High temperature. Fast heartrate. Fast and shallow breathing.
About one-third of all sepsis survivors and more than 40% of older sepsis survivors have a repeat hospitalization within three months of their initial sepsis diagnosis. It is most often the result of a repeat episode of sepsis or another infection.
Referred to in the report as "the final common pathway to death" for severe infectious diseases, it's a leading cause of death in hospitals, with an estimated mortality of 26.7% in hospital patients and 42.6% in intensive care unit patients treated for sepsis.
The early symptoms of sepsis include: a high temperature (fever) or, due to changes in circulation, a low body temperature instead. chills and shivering.
A person with sepsis might have one or more of the following signs or symptoms: High heart rate or weak pulse. Fever, shivering, or feeling very cold. Confusion or disorientation.
A small cut could be the cause, or you could develop an infection after a surgical procedure. Sepsis can occur without warning in people who don't know that they have an infection.
Blood tests may reveal the following signs suggestive of sepsis: Elevated or low white blood cells – Higher than usual levels of leukocytes, known as white blood cells (WBCs), are a sign of a current infection, while too few WBCs indicate that a person is at higher risk of developing one.
“Hospitals treat people with IV antibiotics, IV fluids, oxygen and blood work/testing to find the source of the infection,” Gonzales said. However, if sepsis is caught in a later stage, there can be damage done to the surrounding tissue and/or organ that can require surgery to remove.