The medical field has never been one to progress with the times. It’s either the old way or no other way, at all. Those who went against this and shared facts and ideas that led to better results often ended up being hated, ignored or laughed at ? not exactly the best scenario to encourage the sharing of knowledge.
Historically, medicine is not a field that takes kindly to change of any kind. Such is still the case today in healthcare, where many of the things people do are still based on old myths. The stubbornness of healthcare specialists is as plain as day, especially when you consider these 6 modern myths about respiratory therapy.
What You Should Never Believe About Respiratory Therapy
1. Oxygen Benefits Anemic Patients
Some hospitals have a policy that when hemoglobin is low, the patient should be automatically placed on oxygen. The idea behind this is that more oxygen will be needed by the brain on account of the low hemoglobin levels.
Giving the patient more oxygen doesn’t actually do anything. If the hemoglobin that carries oxygen is not present in the blood, then all the extra oxygen is useless.
2. Oxygen Knocks out the Respiratory Drive of COPD Patients
Therapists back in the 1930s justified their existence with this ridiculous myth. These professionals believed that those who have COPD have carbon dioxide levels so high that they no longer make use of the gas to drive their breath. They instead rely on oxygen. This also means that high levels of oxygen entering the patients’ bodies could cause them to stop breathing.
This isn’t, in any way, true. CO2 still drives breath in COPD patients. Even if you set the oxygen really high, a COPD patient isn’t going to drop dead. While an unstable COPD patient experiencing respiratory distress may lose their drive to breathe because of added oxygen, this has zero to do with hypoxic drive and more to do with ventilatory failure, the Haldane effect, and other issues.
3. If It Wheezes, Then It Can Be Treated With a Bronchodilator
For the longest time, wheezing has been associated with asthma. Most believe that wheezes basically result from the narrowing of the lungs’ air passages.
This isn’t completely true. In fact, many of the things that cause wheezes can’t actually be treated with a bronchodilator. Dry throat, heart failure, cancer, throat swelling, pulmonary fibrosis, and forced exhalation are just some of the issues that a bronchodilator won’t have an effect on.
When it comes to lung problems, wheezes are almost always going to be heard. Most of them aren’t even wheezes at all, they’re simply the sounds air creates as it moves through air passages.
4. Lung Diseases Should Always Be Treated as Asthma
If a patient has a lung ailment of any kind, the first thing a hospital orders is a bronchodilator. Yes, you heard that right. Many physicians believe that any kind of lung disease will result in the spasming of air passages.
Where the truth is concerned, the only lung ailment that requires a bronchodilator treatment is one that results in the spasming of the bronchioles or the muscles that surround the air passages. Bronchodilators such as Xopenex and Albuterol function as muscle relaxants, dilating the passages of air so that breathing becomes easier.
5. Sputum Production Is Increased by Bronchodilators
Time and time again, Ventolin has been administered so that medical professionals can obtain a sputum sample from a patient. Sometimes it works and other times it fails.
While Ventolin does, to an extent, increase the production of sputum, the amount is so low that you barely get any phlegm at all unless a patient is sick and ailing. All it simply does is relax the air passages enough to help the patient cough up a gob.
If a patient has a dry cough, don’t think Ventolin will help bring up sputum. Bronchodilators as expectorants is a complete myth.
6. Ventolin Keeps Asthma at Bay
If patients have a history of ARDS, COPD, intubation, somnolent, trachs, rickets, lung cancer, and fever, Ventolin is usually ordered to prevent these issues from developing into asthma.
The truth of the matter is that Ventolin merely treats spasms in the bronchial smooth muscle that narrows the bronchial passages. That’s basically all that it does. In no way can it prevent a person from getting asthma. If your main focus is to keep asthma at bay, then you may want to resort to better options, such as Symbicort, Dulera, and Advair.
Conclusion
It’s high time for the medical world to realize that some things need to be left in the past. There is already so much scientific proof to prove the aforementioned myths wrong yet many still continue to take care of patients in these ridiculous ways.
Remember that it’s because of these practices that patients continue to suffer, costs continue to increase, and respiratory therapists continue to experience burnout. Educate yourself more on the facts of safe and effective respiratory therapy at Respiratory Therapy Zone.
