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Ventilation And Gas Exchange Case Study

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Case Study 3
Disorders of Ventilation and Gas Exchange
Emmanuel and his mother live in an urban community-housing complex. The building is worn down and dirty from the urban dust, cockroaches, and mold. Emmanuel is five years of age and has suffered from asthma for the last two years. One evening, his mother poured him some milk and put him to bed. Shortly afterward, Emmanuel woke up wheezing and coughing. As he gasped for air, he became more and more anxious. His mother ran for his inhaler, but he was too upset and restless to use it. Emmanuel’s skin became moist with sweat, and as he began to tire, his wheezing became quieter. His mother called 911 and waited anxiously for the ambulance to arrive.
1. Emmanuel uses a corticosteroid inhaler …show more content…

Because Emanuel has a long history of asthma attacks, his is consider as untreated. The first symptoms that his mother should have noticed would have been his persistent cough, shortness of breath and wheezing. According to (Schiffman, Marks, & Shiel, 2015), nocturnal asthma occur in 90% of the patients because of exposing to the trigger (dust, mold and roaches) the patient's lungs function decrease to 50%. However, roaches could be the main trigger since they usually appear at night in the darkness of the rooms. Emanuel's increase work of breathing required more energy, which cause the oxygen needs to increase, and causing physical fatigue. During asthma attacks, the airways narrow, causing bronchospasm, edema of the bronchial mucosa and mucus build up. As the attack continues with the obstruction both inspiratory and expiratory breathes are effected, inspiratory by decrease amount of air in and expiratory taking longer and having more carbon monoxide. Then hyperinflation of the lungs occurs as a response to the air being trap. According to the Papiris, Kotanidou, Malagari, & Roussos (2002), the results are hypoxemia, hypercapnia, and lactic …show more content…

During a major asthma attach the lung not ventilating properly caused respiratory acidosis. This makes the lungs retain carbon dioxide. When carbon dioxide mixes with water, it become carbonic acid. Decrease of oxygen levels in the blood stream causes hypoxemia, increase levels of carbon dioxide cause hypercapnia. The body attempts to compensate by getting the CO2 of the lungs, but with asthma patient they cannot breathe, therefore they keep retain the carbon dioxide. The increasing levels of carbon dioxide let the carbon dioxide cross the blood-brain barrier causing vasodilation of the cerebral blood vessels, which in turn central nervous system changes of headaches, blurred vision, muscle twitching and psychological disturbance leading to lethargy and coma (Grossman & Porth, 2014). Hypercapnia, hypoxemia all leads to

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