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Trepopnea
Trepopnea is dyspnea (shortness of breath) that is sensed while lying on one side but not on the other (lateral recumbent position). It results from disease of one lung, one major bronchus, or chronic congestive heart failure that affects only a side of breathing. Patients with trepopnea in most lung diseases prefer to lie and sleep on the opposite side of the diseased lung, as the gravitation increases perfusion of the lower lung. Increased perfusion in diseased lung would increase shunting and hypoxemia, resulting in worsening shortness of breath when lying on the affected lung. To maximize function of the healthier lung and to relieve dyspnea, the patient is best to lie on the side of the healthier lung, so that it receives adequate perfusion. Patients with chronic heart failure prefer to lie mostly on the right side, to enable a better blood return, whereby cardiac output is augmented. One exception is pleural effusion, in which the patients experience less dyspnea when lying on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orthopnea
Orthopnea or orthopnoea is shortness of breath (dyspnea) that occurs when lying flat, causing the person to have to sleep propped up in bed or sitting in a chair. It is commonly seen as a late manifestation of heart failure, resulting from fluid redistribution into the central circulation, causing an increase in pulmonary capillary pressure and causing difficulty in breathing. It is also seen in cases of abdominal obesity or pulmonary disease. Orthopnea is the opposite of platypnea, shortness of breath that worsens when sitting or standing upright. Causes Orthopnea is often a symptom of left ventricular heart failure and/or cardiogenic pulmonary edema. It can also occur in those with asthma and chronic bronchitis, as well as those with sleep apnea or panic disorder. It is also as associated with polycystic liver disease. From a neuromuscular perspective, orthopnea is potentially a sign of severe diaphragmatic weakness. Under such circumstances, patients may describe shortness ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Platypnea
Platypnea or platypnoea is shortness of breath (dyspnea) that is relieved when lying down, and worsens when sitting or standing upright. It is the opposite of orthopnea. The condition was first described in 1949 and named in 1969. A related condition, orthodeoxia, describes the clinical finding of low oxygen saturation in the upright position, which improves when lying down. Platypnea and orthodeoxia (low oxygen levels when in upright posture) can co-exist, and this combination is named platypnea-orthodeoxia syndrome. The syndrome is considered extremely rare however. Causes Platypnea is usually due to either hepatopulmonary syndrome or an anatomical cardiovascular defect increasing positional right-to-left shunting (bloodflow from the right to the left part of the circulatory system) such as a patent foramen ovale. These defects include rare syndromes in which the venous blood from the liver does not pass through the lungs sufficiently, or if venous blood from the portal circu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dyspnea
Shortness of breath (SOB), also medically known as dyspnea (in AmE) or dyspnoea (in BrE), is an uncomfortable feeling of not being able to breathe well enough. The American Thoracic Society defines it as "a subjective experience of breathing discomfort that consists of qualitatively distinct sensations that vary in intensity", and recommends evaluating dyspnea by assessing the intensity of its distinct sensations, the degree of distress and discomfort involved, and its burden or impact on the patient's activities of daily living. Distinct sensations include effort/work to breathe, chest tightness or pain, and "air hunger" (the feeling of not enough oxygen). The tripod position is often assumed to be a sign. Dyspnea is a normal symptom of heavy physical exertion but becomes pathological if it occurs in unexpected situations, when resting or during light exertion. In 85% of cases it is due to asthma, pneumonia, cardiac ischemia, interstitial lung disease, congestive heart fai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lung
The lungs are the primary organs of the respiratory system in humans and most other animals, including some snails and a small number of fish. In mammals and most other vertebrates, two lungs are located near the backbone on either side of the heart. Their function in the respiratory system is to extract oxygen from the air and transfer it into the bloodstream, and to release carbon dioxide from the bloodstream into the atmosphere, in a process of gas exchange. Respiration is driven by different muscular systems in different species. Mammals, reptiles and birds use their different muscles to support and foster breathing. In earlier tetrapods, air was driven into the lungs by the pharyngeal muscles via buccal pumping, a mechanism still seen in amphibians. In humans, the main muscle of respiration that drives breathing is the diaphragm. The lungs also provide airflow that makes vocal sounds including human speech possible. Humans have two lungs, one on the left an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronchus
A bronchus is a passage or airway in the lower respiratory tract that conducts air into the lungs. The first or primary bronchi pronounced (BRAN-KAI) to branch from the trachea at the carina are the right main bronchus and the left main bronchus. These are the widest bronchi, and enter the right lung, and the left lung at each hilum. The main bronchi branch into narrower secondary bronchi or lobar bronchi, and these branch into narrower tertiary bronchi or segmental bronchi. Further divisions of the segmental bronchi are known as 4th order, 5th order, and 6th order segmental bronchi, or grouped together as subsegmental bronchi. The bronchi, when too narrow to be supported by cartilage, are known as bronchioles. No gas exchange takes place in the bronchi. Structure The trachea (windpipe) divides at the carina into two main or primary bronchi, the left bronchus and the right bronchus. The carina of the trachea is located at the level of the sternal angle and the fifth thoracic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heart Failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, and leg swelling. The shortness of breath may occur with exertion or while lying down, and may wake people up during the night. Chest pain, including angina, is not usually caused by heart failure, but may occur if the heart failure was caused by a heart attack. The severity of the heart failure is measured by the severity of symptoms during exercise. Other conditions that may have symptoms similar to heart failure include obesity, kidney failure, liver disease, anemia, and thyroid disease. Common causes of heart failure include coronary artery disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, valvular heart disease, excessive alcohol consumption, infection, and cardiomyopathy. These cause heart failure by alterin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gravity
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the strong interaction, 1036 times weaker than the electromagnetic force and 1029 times weaker than the weak interaction. As a result, it has no significant influence at the level of subatomic particles. However, gravity is the most significant interaction between objects at the macroscopic scale, and it determines the motion of planets, stars, galaxies, and even light. On Earth, gravity gives weight to physical objects, and the Moon's gravity is responsible for sublunar tides in the oceans (the corresponding antipodal tide is caused by the inertia of the Earth and Moon orbiting one another). Gravity also has many important biological functions, helping to guide the growth of plants through the process of gravitropism and influencing the circ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perfusion
Perfusion is the passage of fluid through the circulatory system or lymphatic system to an organ or a tissue, usually referring to the delivery of blood to a capillary bed in tissue. Perfusion is measured as the rate at which blood is delivered to tissue, or volume of blood per unit time (blood flow) per unit tissue mass. The SI unit is m3/(s·kg), although for human organs perfusion is typically reported in ml/min/g. The word is derived from the French verb "perfuser" meaning to "pour over or through". All animal tissues require an adequate blood supply for health and life. Poor perfusion (malperfusion), that is, ischemia, causes health problems, as seen in cardiovascular disease, including coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, peripheral artery disease, and many other conditions. Tests verifying that adequate perfusion exists are a part of a patient's assessment process that are performed by medical or emergency personnel. The most common methods include eva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypoxemia
Hypoxemia is an abnormally low level of oxygen in the blood. More specifically, it is oxygen deficiency in arterial blood. Hypoxemia has many causes, and often causes hypoxia as the blood is not supplying enough oxygen to the tissues of the body. Definition ''Hypoxemia'' refers to the low level of oxygen in blood, and the more general term ''hypoxia'' is an abnormally low oxygen content in any tissue or organ, or the body as a whole. Hypoxemia can cause hypoxia (hypoxemic hypoxia), but hypoxia can also occur via other mechanisms, such as anemia. Hypoxemia is usually defined in terms of reduced partial pressure of oxygen (mm Hg) in arterial blood, but also in terms of reduced content of oxygen (ml oxygen per dl blood) or percentage saturation of hemoglobin (the oxygen-binding protein within red blood cells) with oxygen, which is either found singly or in combination. While there is general agreement that an arterial blood gas measurement which shows that the partial pressure ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shortness Of Breath
Shortness of breath (SOB), also medically known as dyspnea (in AmE) or dyspnoea (in BrE), is an uncomfortable feeling of not being able to breathe well enough. The American Thoracic Society defines it as "a subjective experience of breathing discomfort that consists of qualitatively distinct sensations that vary in intensity", and recommends evaluating dyspnea by assessing the intensity of its distinct sensations, the degree of distress and discomfort involved, and its burden or impact on the patient's activities of daily living. Distinct sensations include effort/work to breathe, chest tightness or pain, and "air hunger" (the feeling of not enough oxygen). The tripod position is often assumed to be a sign. Dyspnea is a normal symptom of heavy physical exertion but becomes pathological if it occurs in unexpected situations, when resting or during light exertion. In 85% of cases it is due to asthma, pneumonia, cardiac ischemia, interstitial lung disease, congestive heart fail ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleural Effusion
A pleural effusion is accumulation of excessive fluid in the pleural space, the potential space that surrounds each lung. Under normal conditions, pleural fluid is secreted by the parietal pleural capillaries at a rate of 0.6 millilitre per kilogram weight per hour, and is cleared by lymphatic absorption leaving behind only 5–15 millilitres of fluid, which helps to maintain a functional vacuum between the parietal and visceral pleurae. Excess fluid within the pleural space can impair inspiration by upsetting the functional vacuum and hydrostatically increasing the resistance against lung expansion, resulting in a fully or partially collapsed lung. Various kinds of fluid can accumulate in the pleural space, such as serous fluid ( hydrothorax), blood ( hemothorax), pus (pyothorax, more commonly known as pleural empyema), chyle (chylothorax), or very rarely urine (urinothorax). When unspecified, the term "pleural effusion" normally refers to hydrothorax. A pleural effu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paroxysmal Nocturnal Dyspnoea
Paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea or paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnoea (PND) is an attack of severe shortness of breath and coughing that generally occurs at night. It usually awakens the person from sleep, and may be quite frightening. PND, as well as simple orthopnea, may be relieved by sitting upright at the side of the bed with legs dangling, as symptoms typically occur when the person is recumbent, or lying down. Risk Factors Since paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea occurs mainly because of heart or lung problems, common risk factors include those that affect the function of the heart and lungs. Risk factors for cardiac diseases include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, and a lifestyle lacking exercise and a healthy diet. Risk factors for lung diseases include tobacco use, including second hand smoke, pollution, exposure to hazardous fumes, and allergens. Mechanism PND can be explained by mechanisms similar to those of orthopnea and typical dyspnea. When a person is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
