Thanks for joining me outside today. Spring is in the air, people are
exercising. Ah it's just great to get outside and take a deep breath in. So
today we're actually talking about lung volumes, lung capacities, and why that
matters to you as a health care provider. Right after this. Welcome back my name is
Tammy and this is NurseMinder and on this station we do everything nursing so
if you're new here consider subscribing below so that you get the next video
when it is released. Now let's get to our lung volumes. I'm going to need a little
bit of help here so we're gonna go to the board because I need a few diagrams
to help explain this. Lung volumes deal with ventilation - the movement of air in
and out of the lungs, and it involves several structures. We have the trachea,
the right and left bronchial trees, and then as we further move down we have the
bronchioles, the alveolar sac, and the alveoli. Now ventilation is strictly
concerned with the movement of oxygen into the lungs, down to the alveoli, and
the movement of carbon dioxide out. So ventilation in this sense is strictly
the movement of air in and out. Now we're going to start by looking at four lung
volumes: inspiratory reserve volume, tidal volume, expiratory reserve volume, and
residual volume. We're gonna begin with tidal volume. Tidal volume is usually
about five hundred mls and it is the amount of air that we move in and out of
our lungs during a normal breath, such as when you watch TV. Now let's say when
you're watching your favorite TV show you take a big yawn - we're accessing our
inspiratory reserve volume and that's what allows our alveoli to expand to
accept it. And the volume there is approximately 3,100 mls in a normal
healthy adult. So just like I can take a big breath in I can also push more air
out - such as when I sigh or maybe I'm exerting a lot of effort as I'm doing
some work. This is called the expiratory reserve volume and it is approximately
1,200 mls in a healthy adult. Alright, so no matter how hard you try you can
not breathe out all the air in your lungs and that's because there's always
a little bit left and that's known as the residual volume. Collectively
throughout the lung it totals up 1,200 mls.
Now that we understand the various volumes, let's look at the lung and the
capacities in which it provides us. A capacity simply means that we have the
ability to do something. We're gonna start with the inspiratory capacity. This
is the sum of your tidal volume and inspiratory reserve volume. So from a
normal exhalation state, you take in the big as Brad that you can and then exhale
back to baseline. This is approximately 3,600 mls in a healthy adult. Next let's
look at vital capacity. If you've ever gone for a run you've known that you've
been breathing in harder and exhaling harder. We're tapping into both of our
inspiratory and expiratory reserves. This is measured in clinical practice by
having someone taking a big breath and then blowing everything out as hard as
they can until they can no longer breathe. It is the sum of inspiratory
reserve, tidal volume, and expiratory reserve. Now the last two capacities
we're going to look at is the total lung capacity. That is the sum of all four
volumes. It's the total amount of air that your lungs can hold, and the second
is the functional residual capacity. That is the volume of air that remains in
your lungs at end expiration. So here's why you need to know about this
information. We utilize information on lung volumes and capacities to diagnose
patient conditions, to identify if the conditions are getting better or worse,
and to evaluate the effectiveness of our interventions. One such intervention is
the incentive spirometer. We use it a lot in clinical and it's often not used
correctly. So I have a video coming up that will help you understand how to use
it but more importantly how to get the information from it so you can measure
your patients efforts. Well that's it! Thanks for watching. I hope you now
understand the difference between lung volumes and lung capacities and how
they're important to you in your role as a nurse caring for your patient. I'm
gonna hit the trails here. Until next time make it a great day :)