Pediatric respiratory distress
Educational use only. Not clinically reviewed6-year-old girl for whole-child respiratory-distress recognition, serial reassessment, and escalation. About 8 simulated minutes.
What you will practise
- Reconcile appearance, work of breathing, speech, circulation, and pulse-coherent oxygenation as one whole-child respiratory-distress pattern.
- Activate experienced pediatric help, qualified oxygenation, continuous monitoring, and rescue readiness before a complete cause review.
- After elapsed time, review the whole child when oxygen saturation improves but respiratory distress persists.
- Recognize evolving inadequate breathing when respiratory rate and visible recession fall as mentation, effort, air movement, and oxygenation worsen.
- Activate immediate airway-capable pediatric rescue for worsening mentation and inadequate breathing with a pulse.
- Hand off active respiratory support, the trajectory, unresolved causes, deterioration triggers, and named ownership.
Review and sources
Not clinically reviewed. No clinician has signed this scenario.
- American Heart Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. Part 6: Pediatric Basic Life Support: 2025 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care. Pediatrics. 2026;157:e2025074350.
- World Health Organization. Paediatric emergency triage, assessment and treatment: care of critically-ill children. Updated guideline. 2016. ISBN 978-92-4-151021-9.
- Emeriaud G, et al. Executive Summary of the Second International Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Pediatric Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (PALICC-2). Pediatr Crit Care Med. 2023;24:143-168. PMID 36661420.
Open Sim Lab is an educational simulator, not for clinical use. It is not a clinical decision-support tool, not a dosing calculator, and is not validated for any decision affecting a real patient.