Let’s Talk About Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
Pulmonary Fibrosis (PF) is a debilitating disease, marked by progressive scarring of the lungs, that increasingly hinders a person’s ability to breathe.
Sometimes pulmonary fibrosis can be linked to a particular cause, such as environmental exposure, chemotherapy or radiation therapy, infection, or autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. However sometimes there is no known cause and is referred to as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis or IPF.
The cause of Pulmonary Fibrosis still remains a mystery, but it is seems to involve changes in the lung’s normal healing processes. Patients may have an exaggerated or uncontrolled healing response that over time produces excessive fibrous scar tissue, or fibrosis, in the lungs. This scarring causes the lung’s tiny alveoli to thicken and harden, rendering them less able to function and provide the body with the oxygen it needs.
There are a few risk factors that may alter the lung’s healing process and cause scarring. These may include:
- Cigarette smoking
- Occupational exposure to dusty environments (e.g. wood or metal dust)
- Genetic predisposition (10-15 percent of cases)
- Viral or bacterial lung infections
- Acid reflux disease
Pulmonary Fibrosis hinders a person’s ability to take in oxygen. It causes shortness of breath and is usually associated with a persistent dry cough. The disease progresses over time, leading to an increase in lung scarring and a worsening of symptoms. Unfortunately, Pulmonary Fibrosis is ultimately disabling and fatal.
If you have been diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis, there are a number of things you can do to take part in your own treatment and help yourself stay healthy.
- Get your flu vaccine every year.
- Stop smoking.
- Consult your doctor about enrolling in a pulmonary rehabilitation or respiratory therapy program to help increase your strength, learn breathing techniques, and expand your social support network. Many patients report improved breathing and quality of life after adding education and exercise to their treatment.
- Eat a well-balanced diet to maintain in ideal body weight. This helps support your body and keeps up your strength.
- Consider eating smaller, more frequent meals during the course of your day. Many patients find it easier to breathe when their stomach isn’t completely full.
When Pulmonary Fibrosis progresses to a point where your blood-oxygen levels are low, another important tool that can help sufferers is supplemental oxygen therapy. Oxygen can be prescribed by your doctor or via a local oxygen supply company. It contains a higher percentage of oxygen and helps increase the amount of oxygen that is available to be transferred from your lungs into the bloodstream, thereby producing more energy to be used by the cells of your body.
Supplemental oxygen can:
- Decrease your shortness of breath – especially with exercise
- Improve your ability to perform daily activities
- Improve your overall level of fitness
- Improve your quality of life
- Increase life span by decreasing the extra work your heart is doing because of low oxygen saturation levels
And in case you need medical oxygen at any destination worldwide please contact us on info@oxygenworldwide.com and we will try to meet your specific requirements.
7 surprising headache triggers
Do not smoke - very dangerous
Fire chief Steve Dirksen says the combination of pure oxygen and open flame is extremely volatile. He says it was quick response by hospital employees that prevented a much more serious situation.
The exact nature of the injuries has not been disclosed because of the patient confidentiality law.
Hospital employees who responded to a smoke alarm early Thursday in the room rescued the patient, had the fire out when firefighters arrived and evacuated patients in nearby rooms. Damage to the room was minor.
The above recent news articles shows how dangerous it is. Oxygen is flammable and patients need to be aware of the dangers faced when using this medical home treatment.
Home Oxygen Supply explained
- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) - a long-term disease of the lungs, severe long-term asthma
- cystic fibrosis - an inherited disease that causes the lungs to become clogged with thick, sticky mucus
- pulmonary hypertension - high pressure inside the arteries to the lungs, which causes damage to the right-hand side of the heart
- obstructive sleep apnoea - a condition that causes interrupted breathing during sleep diseases of the nerves and muscles or ribcage
- heart failure - when the heart struggles to pump enough blood around the body.
- compressed oxygen cylinders
- liquid oxygen in cylinders
- an oxygen concentrator machine, which extracts oxygen from the air
- Oxygen cylinders
A safe and happy flight with portable oxygen
Just because you need to travel with medical oxygen, this need not restrict the opportunities to travel overseas it just takes a little bit more planning. Flying with a Disability offers you the following advice to ensure a safe, happy flight.
Travellers who require oxygen for medical use are, unfortunately, subject to a charge per bottle. This rate varies between airline, and can be quite expensive. You will need to contact the airline at least 48hrs prior to flying to advise the flow rate, and to get full medical clearance, though this tends to be minor technicality.
Charges for portable medical oxygen can vary greatly, usually between £30 and £100 ($50 - $150). It is interesting to note that many airlines charge not per canister, but per leg of your trip. So in a flight which involves two legs, you're going to be charge twice as much a direct flight, despite the fact that you may be covering the same distance in the same length of time.
Economically, therefore, it can work out a lot cheaper if you can organise a direct flight, though this may not always be possible.
If you need help with planning your trip use specialised medical oxygen companies who can help answer all your queries and make your journey stress-free and a safe landing.
There is also some planning whilst safely on the ground with back up services available for portable oxygen concentrators whilst travelling overseas so you can ensure to have a great holiday with medical oxygen.
This should be a worldwide standard...
A top doctor says the roll out of oxygen alert medical bracelets to patients with known Type 2 respiratory failure will help save lives.
Dr Rose Sharkey, Respiratory Consultant, at the Western Health and Social Care Trust, said the easily recognisable purple oxygen alert bracelets will ensure rapid identification of a patient and ensure that ambulance staff transferring a patient to hospital, and doctors are immediately made aware of a patients oxygen therapy needs.
She said: “We have been working closely with our colleagues in the Ambulance Service to ensure Paramedics firstly check if a patient is wearing one of our purple bracelets.
“If so, then can then check the patient’s oxygen alert card which will tell them the correct amount of oxygen therapy to give a patient during an exacerbation of COPD, as they are transferred to hospital. The delivery of excess oxygen to this group of patients can be detrimental.
“The medical bracelets and oxygen alert cards will be distributed to patients attending respiratory clinics and through our Community Respiratory Services.”
Dr Nigel Ruddell, Assistant Medical Director, Northern Ireland Ambulance Service said: “Good emergency care benefits greatly from teamwork, and anything which allows us to work collaboratively with our hospital colleagues to ensure a patient receives optimal care is to be welcomed. We have already seen the benefits of this alert system working elsewhere and are keen to roll it out on a regional basis to make sure that patients across Northern Ireland with complicated conditions can receive tailored treatment from the ambulance service that will mesh seamlessly with their ongoing care.”
COPD: The chronic misery of breathing
Almost always caused by tobacco smoking, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease kills so many people per year. Treatments can’t reverse the symptoms but can halt deterioration.
Some patients say they live with a constant feeling that they are breathing underwater, as if they were always drowning; others describe their breathlessness (even at rest), frequent coughing and never being able to exhale all the stale air in their lungs.
It is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which used to be known as emphysema and chronic bronchitis, but these are only the symptoms and description of changes in the lungs. Emphysema was identified as early as the late 17th century.
In the majority of cases, you yourself have to smoke to get COPD; much less often, victims are non-smokers exposed passively to another’s smoke.
Tobacco is almost the sole cause of COPD in the developed world; a much less common cause is intense and prolonged occupational exposure to workplace dusts, chemicals and fumes; in the Third World, the chronic disease can also result from indoor air pollution in the form of poorly ventilated cooking fires, often fueled by coal or biomass fuels such as wood and animal dung (making women the more common victims).
Of those who smoke, about a fifth will get COPD, but among those who have puffed away for decades, about half will develop it, and the disease will kill many of them. In many developed countries such as the US and the UK, between 80 percent to 95% of COPD patients are either current smokers or previously smoked. There is no cure, but kicking the dirty habit can slow the progression and maybe even improve the situation a bit but can’t cure it; there are medications that can also ease the symptoms, thus early detection is important.
Respiratory rehabilitation and surgery to remove non-functioning lung tissue can also help. Lung transplants can eliminate the problem, but only a few donor organs are available.
Most of the sufferers are over the age of 55, and a majority are male, but due to their smoking habits, women are quickly catching up. By 2020, it is expected that COPD will be the third most common cause of death in the world and the fifth in engendering disability. This trend is ironic, as the prevalence of heart disease, which is also related to smoking, is decreasing. It takes years of exposure to tobacco to produced COPD.
The airways and air sacs are elastic, so when you inhale, each air sac fills up with air like a little balloon.
When you exhale, these sacs deflate and the air exits. But in COPD, less air flows out because the airways and air sacs lose their elastic quality; the walls between many of the air sacs are destroyed; the airway walls become thick and inflamed; and the airways are clogged with mucus.
ALL COPD patients have both chronic bronchitis and emphysema; some have more of one than the other. The first involves a persistent cough, significant amounts of mucus, fatigue, shortness of breath, chest discomfort.
Many patients require oxygen therapy at least 16 hours – and sometimes 24 hours – a day. Most patients have oxygen concentrators (machines that extract oxygen from air) at home.
This does not cure but can help COPD sufferers every day when it comes to breathing to help make it less of a misery.
Fraunhofer develops smartwatch-based assistance and home-health monitoring systems
As our life spans increase, more services and care will be needed for the elderly, especially those who live independently. Technology clearly has an increasing role to play in improving home care and health monitoring. The latest developments from German research group Fraunhofer are interesting to cite.
Wearable home care assistance system
In collaboration with the German Ministry for Education and Research, the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems has created a wearable technology that resembles a smart watch.
- It can be customised to meet the specific needs of an elderly person and is accessed by authorised personnel and carers through an online portal.
- According to Fraunhofer, the concept system offers support services including reminding users to take their prescription or helping them plan their travels to and from the doctor.
- Emergency services can be easily called because it has phone and Wi-Fi access, as well as the ability to directly contact support professionals.
- The large interface (though not quite the largest smartwatch design we've seen) contains a few basic symbols for simple operation and is programmed in advance according to the person’s needs.
Home health monitoring platform
- The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology has created a health monitoring system that employs blood sample equipment and tiny, non-invasive sensors to deliver immediate health analysis that can be sent to a physician over the internet.
- Fraunhofer claims that the system, which is centred around a unit housing the software and analytical tools, may monitor parameters such as blood pressure, glucose, lactate, or cholesterol level using wireless sensors. One possible way to use this system is to implant a Bluetooth module in the patient's ear.
- Additionally, the device is capable of analysing blood samples obtained through a finger prick, identifying markers using a fluorescence sensor, and transmitting this data to a physician for review via a mobile app.
According to Professor Harald Mathis of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT), "miniaturised sensors in the home unit, which can detect traces of the markers down to the nano level, analyse the blood sample."
Sources:
Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology
Your phone could save your life - one day...
Disease can be treated using pressurized air
