Methods
Methods used for pulmonary hygiene include suctioning of the airways, chest physiotherapy, blow bottles, and nasotracheal suction. Bronchoscopy, in which a tube is inserted into the airways so that an examiner can view them, can be used therapeutically as part of pulmonary hygiene. Incentive spirometry and use of analgesics (pain medications) that do not inhibit breathing are also parts of pulmonary toilet. Coughing is also important for ridding the airways of secretions, so healthcare providers are careful not to oversedate patients, because that could inhibit coughing. Tracheotomy facilitates pulmonary toilet. Percussion, another method, loosens secretions and allows the cilia of the airways to remove material. Positioning is another method for promoting drainage of secretions; sometimes patients are placed in a prone position to aid in this purpose.
Read more about this topic: Pulmonary Hygiene
Famous quotes containing the word methods:
“We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say—and to feel—”Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.””
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)
“It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I think it is a wise course for laborers to unite to defend their interests.... I think the employer who declines to deal with organized labor and to recognize it as a proper element in the settlement of wage controversies is behind the times.... Of course, when organized labor permits itself to sympathize with violent methods or undue duress, it is not entitled to our sympathy.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)