Physical exercises for asthma.

Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physical exercises for asthma. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/30 page 1
    poms Fore ASL cE Xek Rs 1S ES POok “AAS Drie MA In an asthmatic attack the diameter of the small bronchi (air-tubes) is diminished as a result of spasm of the muscular coat. In inspiration (breathing in) the small bronchi are pulled open and the obstruction is thereby reduced. On the other hand, forced expiration (breathing out) tends to compress the bronchi and increase the obstruction. Consequently inspiration is much easier than expiration: the difficult breathing of asthma differs in fact from all other forms of difficult breathing in being mainly expiratory in character. As inspiration remains comparatively easy during an attack, the lungs become more and more distended with air which the forced expiration is incapable of expelling. Consequently at the height of an attack the lungs are distended to their maximum capacity and each expiratory effort, however violent, results only in the expulsion of a very small quantity of air. At the end of an attack the surplus air is expelled from the over- expanded lungs, which return to their normal size. If, however, the attacks are of long duration and frequent, the lungs remain over-distended, especially if, as is usual in chronic cases, the patient continues to be slightly out of breath for most of the day as well as during the attacks. The shape of the chest adapts itself to the condition of the lungs: when the latter are over-distended, the chest assumes the so-called “ barrel-shape ’’, with the shoulders shrugged, the spine curved and the angle where the ribs join the breast bone unduly wide. If this position is maintained for long periods, the muscles of the chest gradually become so accustomed to it that even if the patient is subsequently com- pletely free from asthma, the chest wall does not return to its normal position of rest. This can still be restored by means of a voluntary effort if the condition has not lasted for too long a period. When as a result of chronic asthma the chest has assumed a greater size than normal, the lungs must also remain over-distended. The distended lungs are generally called emphysematous ; but true emphysema depends upon degeneration of the elastic tissue of the lungs, which can no longer collapse (organic emphysema). These changes do not occur in uncompiicated asthma; the lungs are large because they are
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image