Rhonchi

An aerosol type I had not heard of before, from a company called Ventaira:

Pulmonary Drug Delivery Using Mystic Technology
Ventaira’s pulmonary devices, which are based on electrohydrodynamic (EHD) aerosol delivery, enable efficient, safe and consistent delivery of drugs to and through the lungs.

Ventaira inhalation devices utilizing Mystic technology (EHD), deliver a low velocity, soft (isokinetic) cloud of uniformly sized particles with over 80 percent of the drug getting to the lungs. This is accomplished without the need for liquid propellants or other pressurized systems.

The aerosol mist is delivered using the patient’s own breath (inspiration), meaning that the patient can easily control the drug delivery. The delivery mechanism is especially suited for use with young children, seniors, and patients with impaired respiratory function.

Horrible news. All RTs can tell stories about patients on Oxygen who continue to smoke despite the risk and warnings. Here’s an especially tragic story.

Reckless smoker a killer, cops say – 03/21/06 – The Detroit News
Because of his history of reckless smoking, Renwicj has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the infant’s death, along with involuntary manslaughter and arson of a dwelling, Macomb Prosecutor Eric Smith said.

Renwick remained locked up in the Macomb County Jail on Monday in lieu of $100,000 bond after being charged Friday in 41-B District Court in Clinton Township.

“The reason for the second-degree murder charge is Renwick’s recklessness was extreme,” Smith said. “He was repeatedly warned not to smoke around the oxygen tank. And he had set several fires to his apartment before.”

Investigators interviewed a delivery person who brought oxygen tanks to Renwick’s apartment. “He was smoking a cigarette when the delivery guy came to the door,” said William Cataldo, head of the Macomb Prosecutor’s Homicide Unit. “The delivery person said he wouldn’t deliver the tank unless he put it out, and told him about how dangerous it was.”

This is a horrible, horrible story out of San Diego. It hurts me to even post about it on this blog, but the fact is it’s the story of an RT. This man’s conduct violates just about every code of professional conduct, hospital policy, law, and moral and ethical truth possible. The story makes me sick.

WTOP: Sex Abuse Charges Stun Hospital Staffers
SAN DIEGO (AP) – Camera phones are now banned at the Children’s Hospital and Health Center’s convalescent unit. The curtains around patients must be left open most of the time. And administrators are considering installing security cameras in patients’ rooms.

Bleyle, a 54-year-old respiratory therapist at San Diego’s Children’s Hospital, is charged two counts of molestation and 24 counts of child pornography involving children under his care. He is accused of molesting brain-damaged, comatose boys and girls, taking cell-phone photos of himself in the act, and posting them on the Internet.
The precautions were prompted by one man: Wayne Albert Bleyle, a respiratory therapist accused of molesting brain-damaged, comatose boys and girls, taking cell-phone photos of himself in the act, and posting them on the Internet.

“This is the worst case of child molestation imaginable,” prosecutor Laura Gunn said in court last week. “I don’t know if we’ve ever seen a case like it before where the victims were so vulnerable.”

Bleyle, 54, is in jail on $5 million bail after pleading not guilty to two counts of child molestation and 24 counts of child pornography. But Gunn said Bleyle molested many more patients over the past decade, preying on the hospital’s weakest of the weak, including youngsters who would never be able to speak.

It’s not often one sees news in the media about the difficulty in managing the ventilation of a patient. I love the line about ventilating a brick.

VOA News – Bad Bugs Need New Drugs
An aggressive staph infection called MRSA had eaten a hole in his lungs. Scott Smith says over the next two months the child had six blood transfusions. “His lungs were so bad they couldn’t supply the oxygen his body needed.” Surgeons had to insert five chest tubes in his body due to the hole that was in his lungs. “A respiratory therapist told us his lungs were so hard and infected that it was like trying to pump air into a brick,” says Scott Smith.

Nice story of a successful pulmonary rehab program:

The Advocate – Pulmonary program thrives after 10 years
…Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program, which began 10 years ago under Dr. Paul Sachs, director of pulmonary medicine at Stamford hospital. They celebrated the anniversary of the program to coincide with National Pulmonary Rehabilitation week, March 12-18.

“This program was wonderful,” said Burt, now a great-grandmother. “I still walk every day. I stick to the diet, and I feel wonderful.”

The program draws on specialists in the respiratory, physical therapy, occupational, nutritional and psychological fields, Sachs said. Patients learn to manage all aspects of living with such chronic lung diseases as asthma, bronchitis and emphysema.

“You’re working with the whole body,” said Joan Fowler, 75. “You learn how to accept what’s going on with your body and you realize, ‘I’m not the only one like this.’ “

This looks useful:

CPHP Learning Center: Terrorism, Preparedness, and Public Health: An Introduction

At the end of this course, public health workers will be competent to describe the public health role in emergency response in a range of potential or possible emergencies and to recognize unusual events that might indicate an emergency and describe appropriate action. A minor focus is the chain of command in emergency response. Several activities are designed to help the learner identify personal limits of knowledge and direct the learner to useful resources when these limits have been exceeded.

Carthage Press
Respiratory therapists and students from across Missouri, including McCune-Brooks Hospital’s own Chalaine Bell and Heather Neil, visited Jefferson City in February to discuss several legislative actions regarding respiratory care in Missouri

This is all the talk of the AARC disaster preparedness mailing lists. Even I, so many years out of practice in the RT game feel like I could provide help with mechanical ventilation if bird flu hits in earnest. This is assuming of course, I myself am not put down by the flu!

Hospitals Short on Ventilators if Bird Flu Hits – New York Times
No one knows whether an avian flu virus that is racing around the world might mutate into a strain that could cause a human pandemic, or whether such a pandemic would cause widespread illness in the United States. But if it did, public health experts and officials agree on one thing: the nation’s hospitals would not have enough ventilators, the machines that pump oxygen into sick patients’ lungs.

Right now, there are 105,000 ventilators, and even during a regular flu season, about 100,000 are in use. In a worst-case human pandemic, according to the national preparedness plan issued by President Bush in November, the country would need as many as 742,500.

To some experts, the ventilator shortage is the most glaring example of the country’s lack of readiness for a pandemic.

Roomba and Respiratory Care… a connection I never would have imagined. Maybe Roomba needs DME (durable medical equipment) status.

Consumer Reports On Roomba
Several people with respiratory problems like allergies were extremely happy because the Roomba tirelessly cleans their rooms even when they are too tired to vacuum.

Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension makes… strange bedfellows?

Viagra can help the young and breathless – Health – Times Online

Until now Viagra (sildefanil) has been used mainly to correct the common problem of impotence in older men panting away in bed. But now it has a new medicinal purpose, for which it will be renamed Revatio. It will also acquire a new shape and colour and be prescribed in a different dose. For the drug, manufactured by Pfizer, has been found to have a dramatic effect in treating a rare but always debilitating and eventually fatal disease: pulmonary arterial hypertension.