What Is Impending Respiratory Failure?

Those words are scary words for anyone to hear about themselves or someone they love. "Your loved one is going into Respiratory Failure...". What does that mean? How does it happen? What is the outcome?

Respiratory failure happens when a person is no longer able to ventilate and/or oxygenate their body the way that it needs to be done in order to live. Impending respiratory failure means that their lungs haven't failed yet, but it looks like they are going to.

When blood tests are run, and it shows a person's Carbon Dioxide level in their arterial blood is climbing, it means that they are no longer able to get the bad air out. There are several reasons why this can happen, here are just a few.

1. Over sedated - If a person is taking some sort of sleeping aid, and they get too sleepy on the medication, sometimes a person will breath very shallow and gas exchange is hindered.

2. Lung Trauma - When some sort of insult happens to the lungs, or sometimes to the body, the lungs can go into shock. They become stiff and very difficult to breathe through. This can happen if the body has a massive infection (sepsis) or organ failure.

3. Lung Disease - COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, CF (cystic fibrosis), pneumonia, pulmonary fibrosis, ARDS (adult respiratory distress syndrome), O2 toxicity, lung cancer, Congestive Heart Failure, etc...
What happens is that the person is no longer able to get the good air in or the bad air out. The Carbon Dioxide begins to climb and the pH of the blood begins to drop and the person becomes confused and sleepy. The level of the oxygen in the body can also start to fall. This can be determined by blue fingernail beds, blue lips, or medical tests. Pulse oximetry and Arterial Blood Gases are two of the blood tests that will be done at a hospital to determine a person's breathing status.

Ok. Next we need to get the person breathing better. This can be done by providing support until the cause of the shortness of breath is found out. Bipap or ventilators (life support) can be used to "buy time" to make the patient breath adequately while the doctor figures out what is the problem.

The first thing that needs to be looked at is why is the patient beginning to have breathing problems. Do they have a pneumonia? What is different right now that was ok yesterday? What can we do to reverse the problem. This is a very serious issue and should be considered life threatening if not taken care of.

I hope that this answers some questions. Breathe Easy!