Question

A dehydrated patient needs to be rehydrated with an IV of Ringer's solution. At the start of their rehydration therapy, right when the IV is first connected, what is the tonicity of the cells of their body compared to the Ringer's solution? Once the patient is fully rehydrated, and the IV is stopped, what is the tonicity of the cells in the patient's body compared to the Ringer's solution?

Answer 1

Tonicity is the relative concentration of solutes in a solution. A high tonicity (hypertonic) means there is a large amount of solutes and low tonicity (hypotonic) means there is a low amount of solutes.
The patient is dehydrated due to which the patient's cells will have less water than the Ringer's solution; therefore, they will initially be hypertonic compared to the solution.
After the patient has become hydrated, the cells will possess the same concentration of solutes as the solution had, which means they will be isotonic.