Long Term Oxygen Therapy

Long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) usually represents the final step in the management of severe chronic respiratory diseases: a large proportion of patients suffering from these conditions is involved and the corresponding impact for the Health Institutions and the Society is dramatically increasing. Although LTOT is well known and widely used since long ago in most modern countries, it still represents a challenging topic due to the huge amount of variables which can affect both its efficacy and effectiveness. Unfortunately, patients, doctors, care-givers, together with health institutions and political decision makers frequently have different visions on LTOT, thus highly contributing to obtain uneven results and changing outcomes. The focus of this volume is on new insights and novel perspectives of LTOT. Starting from consolidated experiences, it's aim is also to emphasize the strategic value of developing technologies and innovative organizational models uniquely to find out even more opportunities and advantages for the management of chronic respiratory patients needing long-term oxygen treatment.

Long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) usually represents the final step in the management of severe chronic respiratory diseases: a large proportion of patients suffering from these conditions is involved and the corresponding impact for the Health Institutions and the Society is dramatically increasing. Although LTOT is well known and widely used since long ago in most modern countries, it still represents a challenging topic due to the huge amount of variables which can affect both its efficacy and effectiveness. Unfortunately, patients, doctors, care-givers, together with health institutions and political decision makers frequently have different visions on LTOT, thus highly contributing to obtain uneven results and changing outcomes. The focus of this volume is on new insights and novel perspectives of LTOT. Starting from consolidated experiences, it's aim is also to emphasize the strategic value of developing technologies and innovative organizational models uniquely to find out even more opportunities and advantages for the management of chronic respiratory patients needing long-term oxygen treatment.

The development of new therapeutic strategies and the minimization of both direct and indirect costs represent crucial goals in the management of chronic diseases, particularly when these are characterized by a high degree of disability. Chronic respiratory insufficiency (CRI) represents an example of a persistent disease worldwide, for which home management (i.e., daily nursing and treatment) was introduced more than two decades ago according to traditional operating protocols. "Home long-term oxygen treatment" (H-LTOT) was expected to produce significant clinical improvements, together with a substantial drop in CRI social costs (e.g., hospital admissions, number of exacerbations, pharmaceutical costs, and patient's reduced productivity). The present volume describes the evolution in the home management of severe CRI over the last two decades in Italy. It reviews a range of topics including the epidemiological aspects, complicating events, current systems for oxygen delivery with the most convenient interfaces, changing approaches to the patient--caregiver relationship, and the economic burden. Particular attention is paid to the new trends in telemedicine, which is regarded as the future step in respiratory medicine for home-assisted and home-ventilated patients. Data concerning the new role of nursing, the patient's expectation of life, and the patient's, family's, and doctor's perspective are also reported, together with an update on the economic impact of telemedicine and the continuing improvements in the quality of telematic H-OTLT.

This outstanding state-of-the-art reference presents current knowledge of the physiological effects of long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) on the cardiopulmonary system and on the neuropsychological function-detailing the scientific basis for its use in both adults and children with chronic hypoxemia.

This annual edition presents the most recent statistics since 1990 of over 80 health indicators for WHO's 193 Member States. This fourth edition includes an expanded set of over 76 key indicators and a section with 10 highlights in global health statistics in the past year. This book has been collated from publications and databases of WHO's technical programmes and regional offices. The core set of indicators was selected on the basis of relevance for global health, availability and quality of data, and accuracy and comparability of estimates. The statistics for the indicators are based on an interactive process of data collection, compilation, quality assessment, and estimation between WHO technical programmes and its Member States. In this process, WHO strives to maximize accessibility, accuracy, comparability, and transparency of country health statistics. In addition to national statistics, this publication presents statistics on the inequalities in health outcomes and interventions coverage within countries, disaggregated by urban/rural setting, wealth/assets, and educational level. Such statistics are primarily derived from the analysis of household surveys and are only available for a limited number of countries.

"Hypoxaemia is a major contributor to child deaths that occur worldwide each year; for a child with pneumonia hypoxaemia increases the risk of death by up to 5 times. Despite its importance in virtually all types of acute severe illness, hypoxaemia is often not well recognized or well managed, more so in settings where resources are limited. Oxygen therapy remains an inaccessible luxury for a large proportion of severely ill children admitted to hospitals in developing countries. This is particularly true for patients in small district hospitals, where, even if some facility for delivering oxygen is available, supplies are often unreliable and the benefits of treatment may be diminished by poorly maintained, inappropriate equipment or poorly trained staff with inadequate guidelines. Increasing awareness of these problems is likely to have considerable clinical and public health benefits in the care of severely ill children. Health workers should be able to know the clinical signs that suggest the presence of hypoxaemia and have more reliable means of detection of hypoxeamia. This can be achieved through more widespread use of pulse oximetry, which is a non-invasive measure of arterial oxygen saturation. At the same time oxygen therapy must be more widely available; in many remote settings, this can be achieved by use of oxygen concentrators, which can run on regular or alternative sources of power. Having effective systems for the detection and management of hypoxaemia are vital in reducing mortality from pneumonia and other severe acute illnesses. Oxygen therapy is essential to counter hypoxaemia and many times is the difference between life and death. This manual focuses on the availability and clinical use of oxygen therapy in children in health facilities by providing the practical aspects for health workers, biomedical engineers, and administrators. It addresses the need for appropriate detection of hypoxaemia, use of pulse oximetry, clinical use of oxygen and delivery systems and monitoring of patients on oxygen therapy. In addition, the manual addresses practical use of pulse oximetry, and oxygen concentrators and cylinders in an effort to improve oxygen systems worldwide."--Publisher's description.

Providing supplemental oxygen is an essential element of emergency care. Anyone expected to use a medical oxygen device can benefit from this program. The text effectively outlines the importance and

Oxygen therapy is a treatment that provides a patient with extra oxygen to breathe in. It is also called supplemental oxygen. It is only available through a prescription from a health care provider. Patients may receive it in hospital, another medical setting, or at home. Some people only need it for a short period of time. Others will need long-term oxygen therapy. There are different types of devices that can provide oxygen. Some use tanks of liquid or gas oxygen. Others use an oxygen concentrator, which pulls oxygen out of the air. The oxygen is administered through a nose tube (cannula), a mask, or a tent. The extra oxygen is breathed in along with normal air. This book is a concise guide to oxygen therapy for clinicians and trainees. Divided into four sections the text begins with an overview of the basic facts of oxygen, describing the different types and their individual uses in clinical therapy. Section two discusses the physiology and monitoring of oxygen therapy, and section three covers different devices and delivery systems, and oxygen toxicity (lung damage from breathing in too much extra oxygen). The final section examines oxygen targets in disease specifics, how the therapy works, and the effects of hypoxia (low oxygen levels in body tissues) and hypoxemia (low oxygen levels in the blood).