respiratory emergencies emt practice test

Oxygenation and ventilation are two separate processes, and it can be helpful to consider them separately. If the basic airway maneuvers aren’t enough, the patient will require intubation, but it is important to ask: is this patient ready for an RSI? Respiratory assessment: oxygen saturation and work of breathing If I am concerned about airway, I start with basic airway maneuvers. Can the patient speak? Is the patient alert? Is there stridor or gurgling? Is there respiratory effort without any air movement? Look in the mouth and feel the anterior neck. The airway assessment should be very rapid. Raise the head of the bed, or allow the patient to assume their own position of maximal comfort. For an approach to palliative dyspnea, see this post.) Position the patientĪlmost all dyspneic patients will be better in the sitting position. (Note: this approach assumes aggressive life-saving interventions are appropriate. However, they are laid out in what I consider the order of priority, and I think running through the same ordered checklist in my mind with each patient helps ensure I don’t miss something important. The linear nature of the blog post is not meant to imply that you must proceed through the steps in the order presented. In real life, many of these interventions are proceeding in parallel, especially if you are working in a larger institution. Bronchodilators (and steroids eventually).Oxygen (including high flow humidified nasal oxygen).There are only a limited number of things that I can do to help a patient with dyspnea and I want to quickly pick the best therapies from my menu: My “first 10 minute” approach to a sick patient with undifferentiated difficulty breathing is focused on rapidly finding the right therapy, but not necessarily on finding the right diagnosis. How do you approach a patient with undifferentiated respiratory distress? My approach to respiratory distress She is quite tachypneic at a rate of 45 breaths a minute, and her oxygen saturation is 82%. On arrival, she is diaphoretic and using accessory muscles. Over the last few hours, she has found it increasingly difficult to breathe. A 58 year old woman is brought in by EMS with acute onset respiratory distress.

Respiratory emergencies emt practice test