Objective 20: Describe the structure, functions, life cycle, production or erythrocytes and leukocytes

I'm pretty positive that I could have included this objective with another previous blood objective, but I thought this one sounded harder than it actually was (go figure, I seemed to have done that with a lot of them). The blood and cardiovascular system are the two systems that I am most familiar with (and are probably some of the more easier systems of the body), so I didn't have my head spinning half of the time trying to grasp the concepts. The textbook was my main aid in trying to figure out the structure, function, life cycle, and production of the erythrocytes and leukocytes. I found this chart in chapter 16 page 562 that summarizes all of this information in one place. I've never been so grateful for a chart in my life. The text does describe the erythrocytes and leukocytes in detail, but c'mon who doesn't love a very informative chart? The chart not only provided me with the information I was looking for, it also shows you a picture of a erythrocyte and pictures of all the leukocytes. A chart can't get any better than that!

Objective 54: Address how erythropoietin regulates red blood cell production

The texbook does an amazing job at describing how erythropoietin regulates red blood cell production. It explains this process alot better than it does other, if I may add, because for some of the objectives I would have to search and search for something the soundeds somewhere near the answer. The process isn't extremely complicated and there aren't too many difficult words, which is why it was alot easier for me to comphend the first time I read it. The book also provides a great photo that summerizes the process, using a seesaw to demonstrate whether the body is in homeostasis or is imbalanced. The diagram shows the list of stimuluses that could distrub homeostasis in the body, and then shows step-by-step how the body reacts to bring itself back to normal homeostasis again. An example that helps me remember how important this process is to the body is athletes. Healthy athletes will inject EPO to provide them with increased stamina and performance, and will bring their normal hematocrit from 45% to almost as much as 65%. This could be deadly when the athlete dehydrates during a race, which will cause the blood to concentrate further and could cause the blood to because a thick, sticky "sludge". Then the athlete could have blood clotting, stroke, or even heart failure. With this example in mind and a very useful diagram, I am able to understand how important it is that erythropoietin regulates RBC production and how important it is not to tamper with our amazing body processes.

Objective 21: Explain ABO blood types and their importance in blood transfusion

While we were learning about blood types, I strolled across this chart online that helped me understand the four different blood types. The chart not only tells you which antibodies that each blood type produces, but it also shows the type of blood that each one can recieve and which blood type that each one can donate too. It was easier to remember when all the information was collected together. The article Transfusion Reaction- Hemolytic from the cite PubMed Health was also very beneficial when it came to figuring out the importance of blood types in blood transfusions. If given the wrong match of blood for your blood type, the body reacts and destoys the blood cells. The part below is from the Transfusion Reaction article, but I believe it sums up the reasons why blood types are very important in blood transfusions.

Objective 16: Outline the path of blood flow through the chambers of the heart and through the systemic and pulmonary circulations

Pulmonary circuit

Pulmonary circulation transports oxygen-poor blood from the right ventricle to the lungs where blood picks up a new blood supply. Then it returns the oxygen-rich blood to the left atrium

Systemic circuit

The systemic circulation provides the functional blood supply to all body tissues. It carries oxygen and nutrients to the cells and picks up carbon dioxide and waste products. Systemic circulation carries oxygenated blood from the left ventricle, through the arteries, to the capillaries in the tissues of the body. From the tissue capillaries, the deoxygenated blood returns through a system of veins to the right atrium of the heart.
 

I found this information that outlined the path of blood flow through the chambers of the heart and through the systemic and pulmonary circulations from the Internet Encyclopedia of Science. The illustration was very descriptive and allowed me to understand the blood flow of the systemic and pulmonary circulations. This picture shows the oxygen-rich, CO2-poor blood in red and the Oxygen-poor, CO2-rich blood in blue which helped me follow the diagram better because at first i was confused on which circuits carried which type of blood. The descriptions of both circuits were short and straight to the point, but they gave me a better understanding of what the goal was of each circuit.

 



These three photos helped me with understanding the path of the blood flow through the heart and the two circuits because the photos are animated. The animation is a great visual for me because i am literally able to see the flow of the blood instead of having the think about how it might actually occur from just reading the text alone.

Objective 17,18, 19: List and describe functions, physical characteristics and components of blood

17: List and describe the functions of blood

I learned the functions of the blood from Chapter 16: Blood  in our text book on pages 552-553. The three paragraphs were short, but descriptive. They were written in simple terms so it wasn't hard for me to understand and learn them.


This short video How the Body Works: The Functions of Blood from youtube.com was also helpful in learning the functions of blood. It is not as elaborate as the text in our textbook, but it hits alot of key points about the functions of blood that are important to know.

18: List the principal physical characteristics of blood

Our textbook for the course was what helped me understand the characteristics of the blood. This paragraph includes all the important physical characteristics of blood, and it is to the point which makes it easy to comprehend. I searched the internet for other cites to help me understand the characteristics of blood better, but I believe the textbook was the best source of the information because it was all there in a couple of paragraphs.



19: Describe the principal components of blood

This photo was extremely helpful when trying to understand the principal components of the blood. The photo breaks it down for you and I was able to see the percentage of the plasma and formed elements that the blood consists of. The photo was also helpful in telling me the certain types of proteins, solutes, and white blood cells that are in the blood and what their percentages are in the blood.

Objective 22: Understand the blood clotting process

Although this video is a bit long and the speaker is kind of monotone, this video was very descriptive on the blood clotting process. I believe the speaker sumed up the process simply, but accurately. Viewing this video allowed me to understand the blood clotting process, and it was easier to comprehend then the text book.