How we (physiotherapist) treat cardiovascular condition?

So in the previous post I explained about the conditions which can be treated by physiotherapist. Today's post is to explain what is our role in treating cardiovascular condition(heart,lung and blood vessel related conditions). So before we go further, its better we learn about the cardiovascular system of our body. Our body's cardiovascular system consists of the heart,lungs and the blood vessels which supplies fresh blood to all parts of our body (only applies for humans,might vary for other animals).

Representation of the circulatory system of the body. Red flow is  oxygenated blood and blue flow is deoxygenated blood

The primary function of the respiratory system is to supply the blood with oxygen in order for the blood to deliver oxygen to all parts of the body. The respiratory system does this through breathing. When we breathe, we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. This exchange of gases is the respiratory system's means of getting oxygen to the blood.

Respiration is achieved through the mouth, nose, trachea, lungs, and diaphragm. Oxygen enters the respiratory system through the mouth and the nose. The oxygen then passes through the larynx (where speech sounds are produced) and the trachea which is a tube that enters the chest cavity. In the chest cavity, the trachea splits into two smaller tubes called the bronchi. Each bronchus then divides again forming the bronchial tubes. The bronchial tubes lead directly into the lungs where they divide into many smaller tubes which connect to tiny sacs called alveoli. The average adult's lungs contain about 600 million of these spongy, air-filled sacs that are surrounded by capillaries. The inhaled oxygen passes into the alveoli and then diffuses through the capillaries into the arterial blood. Meanwhile, the waste-rich blood from the veins releases its carbon dioxide into the alveoli. The carbon dioxide follows the same path out of the lungs when you exhale.

The diaphragm's job is to help pump the carbon dioxide out of the lungs and pull the oxygen into the lungs. The diaphragm is a sheet of muscles that lies across the bottom of the chest cavity. As the diaphragm contracts and relaxes, breathing takes place. When the diaphragm contracts, oxygen is pulled into the lungs. When the diaphragm relaxes, carbon dioxide is pumped out of the lungs.(extracted from here).

How do we get lung conditions?

Lungs have some defensive mechanism to defend ou body from getting infections from the outside air. The nose have hairs which stops the dust from outside air from going into the airway.( the hair you pluck out from your nose is your lifesaver). The trachea and airway has some small hair-like projection which also helps stop dust from going into the lungs. Our airway also produces mucuos (sticky liquid) which helps traps dust particles and infective materials. When we cough and breath, slowly the dust filled mucuos is moved upwards to our throat which we feel irritating and we cough it out. So when there is too much dust or microorganism coming into our airway, our airway detects it and starts producing more and more mucous.(basically thats when you get flu). Cough reflex is induced to help move out the microorganism and dust filled mucous into the throat so that the infected person can cough it out and removed it from their body. Unfortunately due to some reasons:-

• we forget to cough,
• our coughing effort is not good,or 
• when we are not breathing deep enough,  
• when we have surgical scar at the abdomen or chest,
• when we are unconscious,
• under anasthesia
  
  the mucous filled with bad stuff cannot leave the inner airways.The unwanted subtances in the mucous starts to irritate,infect,injure our lung tissue. Alveolis or the air filled sacs in the lungs,starts to be filled with mucous,resulting in reduced gas exchange in the lungs.Reduced gas exchange causes reduced oxygen level and increased carbon dioxide levels in the body. The heart detects reduced oxygen received at the body tissues so the heart starts to pump harder, causing increase in heart rate. Other than that, the body cells is fatiqued and the breathing gets faster just to fullfil the oxygn demand of the body.

So how do physiotherapist help?

If you are diagnosed with lung conditions, the doctors will refer you to us(please request the doctors to refer you to physio incase your doctor forgot). We assess your lung health and prescribe exercises for you to improve your health. How do we assess?

• we check your lung expansion and decide wether your expansion is good or not
• we hear your lung sounds with stethoscope to check for any mucous collection
• we check the expansion symmetry of both side lungs
• we check your breathing and coughing effort

and we try to correct the problems with the right exercises. exercise include

• deep breathing exercise (to make sure you breath with all levels of the lung)
• chest expansion exercise (to expand all collapsed alveolus)
• coughing and huffing (correct the coughing to remove the mucous collected in the trachea)
• percussion and vibrations (clapping at your chest to move the mucous)
• postural drainage positions (we place you in specific positions to use gravity to move the mucous towards the trachea)
• thoracic mobility exercise (to expand specific parts of your chest which is found to be not expanding fully)

How To Take Care of Your Lungs? take note guys

• avoid breathing dusty and chemical filled air- included keeping your house clean, wearing face mask if need to handle dusty things
• definitely no smoking-also avoid second hand smoke,keep away from smokers
• do not forget to cough-ecspecially when you have flu, or when in a prolonged hospital stay
• keep your body healthy-so that your body's immune system can fight infections
• always practice proper breathing

watch this video to learn the correct breathing technique,correct yours and practice always.


Please take care of your lungs.

clean lung vs smokers lung

Try to keep it as pink as possible,as in the left picture. There is more we can talk about lungs, but the more i write,the more boring its going to look, and you are going to end up not reading at all. I tried to use layman terms as much as possible for my readers understanding. Any questions,feel free to comment below or email me at kathiereshbala@hotmail.com. Thank you.