What are the signs and clinical symptoms of pneumonia

Clinical presentation

Most of them have a sudden onset, often caused by cold and rain, fatigue, viral infection, etc., and about one-third have upper respiratory tract infections before the disease. The course of the disease is 7~10 days.

1. Chills and high fever

Typical cases start with sudden chills, followed by high fever, body temperature can be as high as 39 °C ~ 40 °C, showing a lingering fever type, often accompanied by headache, muscle aches and reduced appetite. The fever pattern after antibiotic use may be atypical, and the elderly and frail may have only a low-grade fever or no fever.

2. Cough and sputum

After 1~2 days, you can cough up mucus bloody sputum or rust-colored sputum, or purulent sputum, and the amount of sputum increases in the dissipation period, and the sputum is yellow and thin.

3. Chest pain

Severe lateral chest pain, often pinprick-like, exacerbated by coughing or deep breathing, radiating to the shoulder or abdomen. If it is lower lobe pneumonia, it can irritate the septal pleura and cause severe abdominal pain, which is easily misdiagnosed as an acute abdomen.

4. Difficulty breathing

Dyspnea, rapid and shallow breathing due to hypoventilation of lung consolidation, chest pain, and toxemia. In severe cases, gas exchange is affected, resulting in a decrease in arterial oxygen saturation and cyanosis.

5. Other symptoms

A few have gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, bloating, or diarrhea. Severely infected people may have confusion, irritability, drowsiness, coma, etc.

Signs

Patients with pneumococcal pneumonia usually have an acute complexion, crimson cheeks, dry skin, and herpes simplex at the corners of the mouth and around the nose.In patients with sepsis, mucocutaneous membranes may have hemorrhagic spots, yellow staining of the sclera, and increased heart rate or arrhythmia. Gram-negative bacilli pneumonia lesions are extensive, with signs of lung consolidation, and wet rales may be heard in the lower fields and back of both lungs. Patients with Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia often have inconspicuous signs, such as moderate pharyngeal congestion, dry and wet rales in the lungs, and otoscopy can show tympanic membrane hyperemia and even hemorrhage, showing inflammatory changes. Chest signs of viral pneumonia are also not prominent, and sometimes crackles can occasionally be heard in the lower lungs.