• Br J Anaesth · Dec 2013

    Characterization of breathing patterns during patient-controlled opioid analgesia.

    • G B Drummond, A Bates, J Mann, and D K Arvind.
    • Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Royal Infirmary, 51 Little France Crescent, Edinburgh EH16 4HA, UK.
    • Br J Anaesth. 2013 Dec 1;111(6):971-8.

    BackgroundRespiratory rate is an important measurement in patient care, but accurate measurement is often difficult. We have developed a simple non-invasive device to measure respiratory movements in clinical circumstances, with minimal interference with the patient. We investigated respiratory patterns in patients receiving postoperative morphine analgesia to assess the capacity of the device to detect abnormalities.MethodsWe studied subjects during self-administered opioid analgesia after major gynaecological surgery, and related the derived signals with a signal from a nasal cannula. Respiratory movement signals were transmitted wirelessly to a recorder from two encapsulated tri-axial accelerometer (RESpeck) sensors. We analysed the signals using two different sensor placements, each for 30 min. The nasal cannula signal was used to classify breathing patterns as obstructive or non-obstructed.ResultsWe studied 20 patients for a mean duration of 49 min each. Breathing patterns were very variable, between and within patients. The median breathing rates ranged from 6.4 to 19.5 bpm. Breathing was partly obstructed in 10 patients, and six patients had repeated cycles of obstruction and transient recovery. In these patients, we found a consistent and statistically significant pattern of changes in chest wall movement, with increased abdominal and decreased rib cage movement during obstruction. In patients with slow respiratory rates, breath-to-breath times were highly variable.ConclusionsIn undisturbed subjects receiving patient-controlled morphine analgesia after surgery, abnormal breathing patterns are extremely common. Cyclical airway obstruction is frequent and associated with a typical pattern of changes in chest wall movement.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…