Case Study Margaret's Alveoli

The most important current nursing problem regarding Margaret is her breathing. Margaret is experiencing breathlessness which is defined medically as dyspnoea and describes laboured or difficult breathing (Calverley, Macnee, Pride & Rennard, 2012). patients that experience dyspnoea frequently describe the feeling of the inability to get enough air and a feeling of smothering, tightness, drowning, or suffocation. When a patient experience’s dyspnoea they commonly describe symptoms of an inability to achieve an adequate air supply and describe a feeling of suffocation, smothering, tightness and/or drowning. Pneumonia affects the movement of air and blood into and out of the lungs (Porth, 2011), this leaves Margaret at risk of developing respiratory failure (National Institute of Health, 2011). The oedema in Margaret’s alveoli is restricting the flow of oxygen in the blood (Porth, 2011). Margaret is having trouble with the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, a rise in carbon dioxide in the blood sends signals to the brain to increase breathing and to breathe deeper (Starr, Evers & Starr, 2010). Margaret is lying on her left side and is
Asthma is a chronic condition that causes difficulties in breathing due to inflammation in the airway passages. Individuals that have asthmas have symptoms of an expiratory wheeze. Margaret would require a spirometry test to determine her lung function at present and in the future, as the pneumonia in Margaret’s lung could also be a contributing for an expiratory wheeze. Margaret may require a physiotherapist as her cough is ineffective, making it difficult to cough up the sputum that is accumulating in her lung. Physiotherapists can aid patients that are experiencing breathlessness by teaching techniques such as deep breathing exercising, assisted coughing and airway clearance