6. What type of pain is felt by a patient with a paralytic ileus?
Correct answer: No pain. There is no colicky pain because there is absence of intestinal movements.
5. What are the four principal features of a paralytic ileus?
Correct answer: (1) Vomiting.(2) Abdominal distension.(3) Absolute constipation.(4) Absence of intestinal movements and, hence, absence of colicky pain.
4. What are the other names for a paralytic ileus?
Correct answer: Adynamic ileus or neurogenic ileus.
3. Why is it bad practice to say that a patient has an ‘ileus’ if you mean a ‘paralytic ileus’?
Correct answer: An ‘ileus’ comes from the Greek verb ‘to roll’ and refers to the pain of mechanical obstruction.
2. What are the two major subdivisions of obstructions?
Correct answer: Mechanical and paralytic.
1. Where does the word ileus come from?
Correct answer: The word ileus comes from the Greek verb ‘to roll’, from which it became applied to colic and hence obstruction.
13. How should the cause of mechanical intestinal obstruction be classified?
Correct answer: (1) Causes in the lumen. (2) Causes in the wall. (3) Causes outside the wall.
12. What will happen to a strangulated piece of bowel?
Correct answer: It will become gangrenous.
11. What is a strangulated obstruction?
Correct answer: This is when the blood supply of the involved segment of intestine is cut off (as may occur, for example, in strangulated hernia, volvulus, intussusception or when a loop of intestine is occluded by a band). Gangrene of…
10. What is a simple obstruction?
Correct answer: This occurs when the bowel is occluded without damage to its blood supply.
