Advanced Medical Life Support (AMLS)

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Enhance your emergency healthcare skills with AMLS. Engage with challenging questions, each equipped with explanations to deepen your understanding. Prepare to excel in your certification!

Each practice test/flash card set has 50 randomly selected questions from a bank of over 500. You'll get a new set of questions each time!

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Which clinical sign would best indicate tricyclic antidepressant toxicity?

Dysrhythmias
Rash
Confusion
Drooling

The correct answer is: Dysrhythmias

Tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) toxicity can lead to several clinical manifestations, with dysrhythmias being one of the most significant and concerning. TCAs have anticholinergic effects and can influence cardiac conduction by blocking sodium channels in the cardiac tissue. This can result in various types of dysrhythmias, including potentially life-threatening arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation. The presence of dysrhythmias in a patient suspected of TCA overdose indicates a severe level of toxicity that requires immediate medical intervention. Monitoring cardiac function is crucial in these cases, as the dysrhythmias can progress to cardiac arrest if not addressed quickly. While confusion can be a symptom of TCA toxicity due to its effects on the central nervous system, it is not as definitive or as dangerous as dysrhythmias in the context of overdose. Rash and drooling, while they may occur in certain situations, are not characteristic of TCA toxicity and do not indicate the severity that dysrhythmias do.