03 · Sepsis & Septic Shock — Step 01 of 05 · See it
Infection plus new organ dysfunction
Suspect sepsis when an infection meets a newly failing organ: a confused brain, a soft blood pressure, fast breathing, falling urine output, mottling skin.
Infection → septic shock
Organ dysfunction — sepsis
Hypoperfusion and inflammation injure organs. Infection plus new organ dysfunction is sepsis (Sepsis-3).
Bedside pattern
- Altered mentation
- Oliguria
- Hypoxemia / increased work of breathing
- Prolonged capillary refill
Hemodynamics
- SVR
- decreaseddecreased
- vasoplegia
- CO
- variablevariable
- normal or high early
- Lactate
- increasedincreased
- hypoperfusion signal
Early sepsis is often hyperdynamic (low SVR, normal or high CO, warm skin) and late sepsis often hypoperfused (falling CO, cool mottled skin) — but not every patient follows an identical warm → cold timeline.
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