Paramedic Test #8 - Chapter 16 - Respiratory Emergencies

Serious spinal injury causing nerve impulse blockage.  Progressive muscle weakness and paralysis that moves up from the feet and reaches the diaphragm. 

Causes muscle paralysis and fatal when it reaches the muscles of respiration.  Caused by bacteria in food.  

Respiratory alkalosis causes numbness around the hands, feet, and mouth.  If continues, then hands and feet will clench uncontrollably.  

Hyperventilation, caused by acidosis.  Deep and labored, usually from a patient with DKA.  

Severe allergic swelling around the eyes and lips.

Small, hairlike structures that rhythmically wave in a pattern that helps move particulate matter up and out of the airway.  

Produce mucous that blankets the entire lining of the conducting airways.  

Process by which deoxygenated blood from the pulmonary circulation releases carbon dioxide and is resupplied with oxygen before it enters the cardiac circulation.

Helps reduce surface tension and helps to keep the alveoli expanded and ready to exchange oxygen.  

Thick blood caused by a surplus of red blood cells.  

Right sided heart failure from chronic lung disease. 

Network of gaps between air-filled alveoli and the capillaries which supply deoxygenated blood.  

Part of the lung volume that does not participate in ventilation.  Usually about 1mL per pound of ideal body weight.  

Movement of air in and out of the lungs

Molecule of oxygen travels from an alveoli to a red blood cell, it must first diffuse (pass through) one side of the alveolar cell, across the membrane, and out the other.  

Reflex that causes us to choke or cough if we take too deep a breath, keeping the lungs from overinflating.  

Fluid balance disorder - can't remove fluid from system - CHF

Epigastrum is pulled in as the abdomen is pushed out, creating a see-saw effect

Weak or absent pulses on inhalation are caused by extreme pressure changes in the thorax.  

COPDers - have trouble pushing air out.  Purse their lips and blow out long breaths.    

Continuous sounds that can be heard through some portion of each breath.  High pitched.  Asthma or CHF or when a foreign body obstructs a bronchus. Single note - monophonic, many notes, like a bagpipe - polyphonic. 

Discontinuous sounds are pops, snaps, and clicks.  Popping open of air spaces - fine crackles.  Movement of fluid or secretions - coarse crackles.  

High pitched crackles heard at the end of inspiration.  Pulmonary edema. 

Low pitched crackles caused by secretions in the larger airway.  

Irregular, widely spaced, neurologic impulses in a dying patient.  

Prolonged inspiratory hold.  Indicates severe brain injury

Crescendo-Decrescendo breathing with apnea between cycles. 

Sitting up, position that helps breathing efforts.  Semi-Fowler - 45degree

Veins are engorged with blood.  Common with asthma or COPD.  Specific sign of right sided MI.

When the fingers leave temporary depression in tissue from excess fluid. 

Shortness of breath induced by lying flat. 

Gastric acid irritates the lung tissue after aspiration of vomitus. 

Severe, prolonged asthmatic attack that can't be stopped with conventional treatment.  

Bronchospasm is when the muscle contracts, causing the tube to narrow. 

Edema is when the tube wall swells, causing the lumen to narrow.

Stimulus to breath comes from a decrease in oxygen, rather than an increase in CO2.  Only a small percentage of COPD patients breath with the hypoxic drive.  

Coughing up blood in the sputum.

Excessive amounts of fluid in the pleural space. 

Opens like a mesh umbrella in the main vein that returns blood to the heart, intended to catch clots that can break loose and travel to the legs.  

Pattern characteristic of diabetic ketoacidosis, with marked hyperpnea and tachypnea.