Dehydration is the loss of water and salts essential for normal body function. It occurs when the body loses more fluid than it takes in. Young and middle-aged adults who drink when thirsty generally maintain fluidbalance. Children need more water because they expend more energy, but most children who drink when thirsty get as much water as they need.
Detecting the symptoms of illnesses in the elderly can be very challenging. This is because most signs and symptoms of diseases in seniors are often shrugged off as being part of the "normal" aging process. Dehydration manifests itself according to the stage of illness.
One of the problems that Bartter and Gitelman patients can have is dehydration because the kidney does not have the ability to concentrate urine. Therefore you lose more fluid than normal and need to take in more fluid than normal.
