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Pneumothorax Research Paper

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What is a Pneumothorax?
Joshua Calabrese Persuasive Writing - CS 007 A38
Christopher Jason
December 9th , 2016

What is a Pneumothorax? If a person is asked what the most important organ in the human body is, they will often reply with many difference vague answers. However, in most cases the heart and lungs are mentioned first. The heart and lungs are two crucial organs in your body, they work hand in hand by supplying your body oxygen through direct and constant blood flow. The heart and lungs are the two organs that belong in the thoracic cavity. They are protected by a cage of bones, cartilage and two massive pectoral muscles. This is because, they are both main components of the circulatory and respiratory system (Thibodeau, 2015). …show more content…
Both of these can lead to multiple extensive injures such as, rib fractures, flail chests, sternum fractures and even hemothoraces and pulmonary contusions. One of the most frequent and fatal thoracic injures are the different types of pneumothorax. The pneumothorax is viewed as the most serious and fatal of the chest injuries because they are difficult to find and diagnose, they have multiple different types, and that they cannot be treated on the field. There are three different types of pneumothoraces; simple pneumothoraces, open pneumothoraces and tension pneumothoraces. Each pneumothoraces have specific symptoms with separate causes and variant degrees of health risks. Furthermore, the treatment for each type of pneumothorax is different (MacDonald, 2015). The word “Pneumothorax” is a combination of the Greek words “Pneumo” meaning lung and sometimes air and “thorax” being the cavity that contains the lungs, these words combined means air in the thorax. Air in the thorax is the main concern of the pneumothorax condition (Chabner, …show more content…
However, the most common small pneumothorax injuries are rib fractures that pierce the lung. For instance, stabbings, gunshots and lung ruptures cause by barotrauma in the thorax. Barotrauma is caused when a high and instantaneous amount of pressure is applied to the chest wall, while the patient has inhaled, closing the glottis in anticipation of pain (MacDonald, 2015). Common signs and symptoms in a patient presenting with a simple pneumothoraces will often show mild dyspnea and pleuritic chest pain, possible subcutaneous emphysema, more likely if there is a bone fracture, depleted breath sounds on the affected sides during auscultation. When the cavity is being filled, air will accumulate at the highest point and work it’s way lower and diminish lung sound in the accumulate spaces, because of this hearing lung sounds during ascultation is best herd anteriorly if the patient is supine or in the apices if the patient is sitting upright (MacDonald, 2015 and Weiser, 2016, para. 2). If the patient’s condition has worsened, it is known as a “large pnemothorax”. These signs and symptoms often become more prevalent, showing absent breath sounds, Hypoxia, Acute mountain sickness, Tachycardia and Cyanosis. Hyperresonance to percussion may also be found in the effected side (MacDonald,

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