This is a rather unorthodox way I use to quickly recall causes of acute dyspnea & hypoxia – especially handy in acute care or hospital setting. Its a visual technique so a video would explain it best. It’s easy to recall differential diagnosis of acute dyspnea if we associate the causes by their directions in reference to the lung.
Quick Explanations: The video is a play on semantics, of course need to use a little imagination here 🙂
- Aspirated material travels from Top –> Down
- 95% of Pulmonary embolisms come up from legs , in other words they travel from Down –> Up
- Pleural Effusions and Pneumothorax would compress lungs from Outwards –> Inwards
- Pulmonary edema from CHF expands from Inwards –> Outwards
- In COPD or asthma exacerbation, the issue is obstructed airway during expiration, hence the roundabout arrow suggesting the air is trapped and nowhere to go !
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