Rhonchi

This is a pretty cool idea:

Games Spotlight Healthy Lungs – News – Burke Connection – Connection Newspapers
This is the first Lung Games program in Virginia. “Our goal is to have these games throughout Virginia (at other lung rehab programs),” Montilla said.
Inova Fairfax has one of 23 lung rehabilitation programs in Virginia, Montilla said. Staff for it includes a pulmonologist, a nutritionist, a psychologist and several nurses and therapists.
Along with providing guided exercise to patients, the initial 10-week pulmonary rehabilitation program teaches patients how to use exercise machinery and medicines, and provide information about insurance policies for their disease. They also learn how to interpret their own pulmonary function data. Finally, they learn to control the panic that sometimes strikes when they have difficulty breathing.

Summary for patients. Those Incentive Spirometry orders stand!

Preoperative Pulmonary Risk Stratification for Noncardiothoracic Surgery: Systematic Review for the American College of Physicians — Smetana et al. 144 (8): 581 — Annals of Internal Medicine
The authors found good evidence that the following patient factors increase the chances of pulmonary complications: older age, American Society of Anesthesiologists class II or higher, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, dependence on others for help with daily activities, and congestive heart failure. The authors also found good evidence that pulmonary complications are most common with aortic aneurysm repair, thoracic surgery, abdominal surgery, neurosurgery, vascular surgery, head and neck surgery, surgery lasting for more than 3 hours, emergency surgery, and general anesthesia. The only laboratory test result that predicted pulmonary complications was low serum albumin level (blood test that indicates poor nutritional status). The authors found good evidence that strategies to expand the lungs after surgery, such as deep breathing exercises, reduce the risk for pulmonary complications. They found fair evidence that selective use of a nasogastric tube (a tube passed through the nose to the stomach) for nausea, vomiting, or abdominal distention only reduces pulmonary complications after abdominal surgery. They found insufficient evidence to draw firm conclusions about the effectiveness of other strategies to reduce pulmonary complications.

My buddy Hedgehog has a new group on MySpace called http://groups.myspace.com/HealthTravel for folks who are travelers in health care. If you’re an RT or other medical professional check it out.

Man Coughs Up Nail 35 Years After Accident
His family rushing him to the hospital with a 105-degree temperature. There, doctors found the culprit, a small nail that had dropped down inside Hart’s body cavity and nestled inside his ribcage.

Doses of penicillin helped Hart heal, but since removing the metal would require major surgery and doctors suspected the nail would seal itself off in Hart’s body, the foreign object was forgotten for years.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Hart said.

Years later, the nail turned up again on a doctor’s x-ray, but again, the unobtrusive item was left alone.

Then, three weeks ago, an internal camera captured an image of the nail during a routine doctor’s office visit. But it wasn’t in Hart’s ribcage area as he’d always thought — the object was actually in Hart’s lung. As Hart and his doctors made plans to remove the nail once and for all, natural physiology took over.

Apparently the mucociliary blanket is much tougher than I was led to believe.

If I’d have had rhonchi.com up and running last year I’d have posted this here too:

ArtLung Blog : Archives : » Bronchoscope, 1993

At UVa I was one of the Respiratory Therapists on the bronchoscopy team. Basically we assisted on bronchoscopies for patients who needed to have their lungs looked at with fiber-optics. I assisted on some odd ones. I remember one very critically ill patient, their circulation was supported heavily with vasopressors and I think he was an ARDS on top of preexisting pulmonary fibrosis—the inside of their lungs seemed to be filled up with black tar. Really terrible. I worked the night shift at UVa, so there were no “day in day out” bronchoscopies, it was usually people who were very sick. The Pulmonologists were all really cool, and it was fun to be in that assist role. They want saline, you have the saline ready. We maintained the bronch cart and assured we were ready for anything. It was actually quite fun, despite the seriousness of the job.

RTs in politics!

Flott to run for House seat
Respiratory therapist Darren Flott announced that he’s making another bid to represent District 98 in the Alabama House of Representatives.

Flott, 40, ran for the position in 2002, losing to the longtime incumbent in a runoff.

The candidate, who said he lives in Eight Mile, is director of the respiratory therapy and cardiopulmonary departments at Atmore Community Hospital/Baptist Healthcare .

In my quest to find RT mentioning blogs I found this December webMD post about Respiratory Therapists. I like the bit about RT being in the basement. That was true of several hospitals I worked at, but by no means all.

If you are new to a community and have asthma or COPD and want to know the best pulmonary specialist for your care, I think that a local RT will steer you to the best pulmonologist, based on their experiences with most of the doctors in your new community. RTs are easily found by going to your local hospital and asking for the RT department (often in the basement, because that’s where the ventilators were traditionally stored).

Main WebMD link.

If passed, will pays less for home O2…

WHSV | One Act, One Less Breath
An act of Congress could take many people’s breath away, literally. A section of the “Deficit Reduction Act of 2005″ will force patients who are on home oxygen to foot more of the bill. Currently, Medicare pays for the machine, supplies, and maintenance of the tanks; but the bill will stop the coverage after three years. This leaves many wondering what they would do without it.

“If I didn’t have it I’d be laying out on the floor passed out waiting for someone to find me which may never happen,” said Linda Kidd of Harrisonburg.

Linda Kidd has been depending on an at home oxygen tank for more than 10 years. Medicare covers the cost now but not if a new bill come through Congress.

Vitamin D Linked To Improved Pulmonary Function

Vitamin D Linked To Improved Pulmonary Function
Posted on: 01/06/2006AUCKLAND, New Zealand–Higher blood levels of vitamin D are associated with improved lung function, according to a study published in Chest

I am creating a list of RCP / RRT / CRTT bloggers. There’s nobody on the list at the moment except for me, and I barely count since I’ve not practiced in a decade. But I’m looking forward to hearing from other RT bloggers!