Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Rales: Small clicking, bubbling, or rattling sounds in the lungs. They are heard when a person inhales. They are believed to occur when air opens alveoli. Rales can also be described as moist, dry, fine, and coarse. [9] Rhonchi are coarse rattling respiratory sounds, usually caused by secretions in bronchial airways. The sounds resemble snoring.
Crackles are the clicking, rattling, or crackling noises that may be made by one or both lungs of a human with a respiratory disease during inhalation, and occasionally during exhalation. They are usually heard only with a stethoscope ("on auscultation"). Pulmonary crackles are abnormal breath sounds that were formerly referred to as rales. [2]
Chest retractions may be observed in patients with asthma. During a chest retraction, the patient's skin appears to sink into the chest. During supra-sternal retractions, the skin of the neck appears to sink in as the accessory breathing muscles of the neck contract to aid with inspiration.
Hamman's sign (rarely, Hammond's sign [1] or Hammond's crunch [2]) is a medical sign consisting of a crunching, rasping sound, synchronous with the heartbeat, [3] heard over the precordium in spontaneous mediastinal emphysema. It is thought to result from the heart beating against air-filled tissues.
Chest tubes are also provided in right angle, trocar, flared, and tapered configurations for different drainage needs. As well, some chest tubes are coated with heparin to help prevent thrombus formation, though the effect of this is disputed. [16] Chest tube have an end hole (proximal, toward the patient) and a series of side holes.
Laënnec's contributions were refining the procedure, linking sounds with specific pathological changes in the chest, and inventing a suitable instrument (the stethoscope) to mediate between the patient's body and the clinician's ear. Auscultation is a skill that requires substantial clinical experience, a fine stethoscope and good listening ...
Breath sounds are bronchial; Possible medium, late, or pan-inspiratory crackles; Vocal resonance is increased. Here, the patient's voice (or whisper, as in whispered pectoriloquy) can be heard more clearly when there is consolidation, as opposed to the healthy lung where speech sounds muffled. A pleural rub may be present. [4]
Clinicians may be able to get a working diagnosis from abnormal movement or shape of the chest in cases such as pneumothorax or haemothorax; Listening to external breath sounds a short distance from the patient can reveal dysfunction such as a rattling noise (indicative of secretions in the airway) or stridor (which indicates airway obstruction)