What are the symptoms of respiratory failure?

Written by Han Shun Li
Pulmonology
Updated on September 03, 2024
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Respiratory failure is a common and serious condition in clinical settings, often categorized as an acute and critical illness. Simply put, respiratory failure occurs when respiratory function is extremely poor. It is caused by severe impairment of pulmonary ventilation and gas exchange due to various reasons. Even at rest, sufficient gas exchange cannot be maintained, leading to serious hypoxemia or concurrent hypercapnia. Clinically, this often presents with severe breathing difficulties, hypoxia, cyanosis, and requires immediate intervention to prevent potentially life-threatening complications.

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Respiratory failure classified by etiology

Respiratory failure can be classified according to its causes into four types. The first type involves diseases of the airway such as bronchial inflammation, bronchiectasis, and foreign body obstruction, leading to insufficient ventilation. The second type is due to lung tissue diseases, such as pneumonia, severe tuberculosis, emphysema, diffuse pulmonary fibrosis, adult respiratory distress syndrome, etc., causing a state of hypoxia and carbon dioxide retention due to ventilatory defects. The third type includes pulmonary vascular diseases, such as pulmonary vascular embolism and pulmonary infarction, which cause part of the venous blood to flow into the pulmonary veins, resulting in hypoxia. The fourth type involves diseases of the thoracic cage such as chest trauma, surgical trauma, pneumothorax, and pleural effusion, which affect daily activities and lung expansion, leading to insufficient lung ventilation and resulting in respiratory failure.

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Written by Han Shun Li
Pulmonology
40sec home-news-image

What are the symptoms of respiratory failure?

Respiratory failure is a common and serious condition in clinical settings, often categorized as an acute and critical illness. Simply put, respiratory failure occurs when respiratory function is extremely poor. It is caused by severe impairment of pulmonary ventilation and gas exchange due to various reasons. Even at rest, sufficient gas exchange cannot be maintained, leading to serious hypoxemia or concurrent hypercapnia. Clinically, this often presents with severe breathing difficulties, hypoxia, cyanosis, and requires immediate intervention to prevent potentially life-threatening complications.

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Written by Han Shun Li
Pulmonology
45sec home-news-image

Is respiratory failure serious?

Respiratory failure is a common and critical condition in the respiratory system, and it is very serious. Respiratory failure manifests as a severe decline in respiratory function, often with significant damage to the lungs' ventilation and gas exchange capabilities. Patients often experience severe chest tightness, difficulty breathing, obvious hypoxic cyanosis, and may even present with symptoms such as convulsions and coma, which can be fatal. Treatment usually requires oxygen therapy and often the assistance of a ventilator. Therefore, respiratory failure is considered a very serious condition clinically and requires proactive management to save the patient's life.

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How to administer oxygen for respiratory failure.

First, we should evaluate whether the patient has type I or type II respiratory failure based on arterial blood gas analysis. Type I respiratory failure is primarily characterized by low oxygen tension, indicating a state of hypoxia, with normal carbon dioxide tension, in which case high-flow oxygen therapy can be administered. In type II respiratory failure, both the oxygen tension is low and the carbon dioxide tension is high. In this case, only low-flow oxygen therapy should be given, or non-invasive ventilation, or endotracheal intubation connected to mechanical ventilation may be employed.

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Written by Peng Miao Yun
Internal Medicine
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Care for patients with respiratory failure

Patients with respiratory failure are always emergency and critically ill patients in clinical settings. For patients with respiratory failure, we need to pay close attention in nursing: first, strictly monitor the patient's vital signs, observe the frequency of respiration, blood pressure, and consciousness state; take good care of the skin and oral cavity to prevent dependent pneumonia and bedsores; and timely remove the patient’s sputum. Encourage conscious patients to cough more and expectorate sputum. For those with weak coughs, assist regularly with turning and patting the back to facilitate the removal of sputum. For comatose patients, mechanical suction or tracheostomy for mechanical ventilation can be performed. At the same time, avoid factors that can induce respiratory difficulty such as cold air and poor air circulation. Patients with respiratory failure consume a lot of energy, especially those on mechanical ventilation, who are in a stress state with increased catabolism. Therefore, daily protein intake should be increased, encourage the patient to eat more to enhance nutrition, and provide a diet high in protein, high in fat, and low in carbohydrates.