Understanding Hypernatremia

Understanding hypernatremia is at times difficult for many clinicians. However, hypernatremia can often be deciphered easily with some basic understanding of water and sodium balance. Here, the basic pathophysiological abnormalities underlying the development of sodium disorders are reviewed, and case examples are given. Hypernatremia often arises in the hospital, especially in the intensive care units due to the combination of (1) not being able to drink water; (2) inability to concentrate the urine (most often from having kidney failure); (3) osmotic diuresis from having high serum urea concentrations, and (4) large urine or stool outputs.