Breathing patterns and Emphysema
Breathing is an automatic process, whereby air moves in and out of the lungs. Breathing patterns refer to the frequency of breaths over a specific period and mainly consist of the respiratory rate of a person and the tidal volume. The amount of air exchanged or displaced in a single breath is referred to as tidal volume. Breathing patterns are of two types normal and altered breathing patterns (Cho, et al., 2017). When at rest, one experiences the normal breathing, which is called Eupnea. Changes in the rate of respiration or the amount of air exchanged in breathing referred to as altered breathing patterns. Altered breathing patterns are of various types such as Dyspnea, Hypernea, Tachypnea, Bradypnea, and Apnea, which usually show symptoms of diseases. Breathing patterns are significant criteria for the diagnosis of various diseases, including those not related to the respiratory system.
Emphysema is a type of condition of the lungs which leads to shortness of breath and damages the air sacs in the alveoli, and they weaken and end up being ruptured, thus being larger rather than small as they are supposed to be. This leads to the reduced surface area to volume ration of the amount and volume of oxygen reaching blood in the lungs. During exhalation, old air gets trapped, thus no room for fresh air due to the damaged alveoli. The main symptom of Emphysema is shortness or insufficiency of breath. The leading causes Emphysema is exposure to airborne irritants such as smoke from tobacco and marijuana, pollution of air and fumes from chemicals, or dust. This condition is prevented by avoiding breathing secondhand smoke, not smoking, and wearing protective masks when working within areas with fumes from chemicals or dirt to prevent them from reaching the lungs. (Shah, et al., 2017).
References
Cho, Y., Bianchi-Berthouze, N., & Julier, S. J. (2017, October). DeepBreath: Deep learning of breathing patterns for automatic stress recognition using low-cost thermal imaging in unconstrained settings. In 2017 Seventh International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII) (pp. 456-463). IEEE.
Shah, P. L., Herth, F. J., van Geffen, W. H., Deslee, G., & Slebos, D. J. (2017). Lung volume reduction for Emphysema. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 5(2), 147-156.
