Edema Nursing Cheat Sheet – The 4 Causes & Fluid Overload Study Guide (Printable PDF)

This one-page visual breaks edema down to the four forces that push fluid out of the vessel, so you can tell which cause you’re actually looking at — and why the fix changes with it.

What’s inside:

• The four causes mapped clearly: high hydrostatic pressure, low albumin (oncotic pull), leaky capillaries, and blocked lymphatics
• The simple vessel-vs-tissue picture of why fluid leaks in the first place
• What each cause points you toward (heart backup, liver/kidney disease, sepsis/burns, lymph blockage)
• Bedside assessment: daily weights as your truth (a kilo = a liter), lung sounds, and albumin cutoffs
• The red flag: sudden shortness of breath with pink, frothy sputum = pulmonary edema, escalate now
• Why edema is the clue, not the diagnosis

Perfect for: nursing students, new grads, NCLEX prep, med-surg, telemetry, and critical care floors.

Instant PDF & PNG download — print it, slip it in your clinical binder, or save it to your phone.

For educational and study purposes only. Not medical advice or a treatment protocol.