Cause of Dyspnea
Dyspnea has cognitive and emotional components, in the course of care plan development and dyspnea management peculiar attention should be paid to the causes of the nonspecific symptom (Lynch, 2006). Dyspnea also referred to as shortness of breath, breathlessness or air hunger occurs for various reasons either at rest or on exertion (Hamilton, 2005).
Descriptions of the symptom may vary according to the patient, and it occurs when the required workload exceeds an individual’s normal ventilation abilities. Hence, neural receptors alert the respiratory centers of the brain stem in response to the changing levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen. This imbalance between the respiratory and the cardiopulmonary systems results in breathing stress or dyspnea (Lynch, 2006).
Common causes of dyspnea include: heart problems, such as irregular heart beats, fluid accumulation around the heart caused by forms of cancer, recent heart attack, heart failure, cardiomyopathy, ascites, renal insufficiency; lung problems, such as blockage by a foreign body in your upper or lower airway passages, by tumor, infection; constriction of your lung passages; pneumonia; pulmonary edema, upper respiratory infection; pulmonary fibrosis; pulmonary toxicity; pneumothorax; pulmonary emboli; anemia, anxiety, etc (Hamilton, 2005).
About fifty percent of patients with cancer experience dyspnea. Some causes of cancer-caused dyspneic patients are directly related to cancer, or the primary tumor may be in another organ which metastasizes to lung tissue and causes shortness of breath. It can be also caused by either pleural effusion or pericardial effusion. Dyspnea can be brought about by the effects of cancer treatment such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy. On becoming weak, patients may have decreased ventilatory movement, unstable psychological status undermined by pain or anxiety which also lead to dyspnea (Lynch, 2006).
Proper diagnosis of the underlying causes of dyspnea is a task of primary importance, as it is the key to successful symptom management and disease treatment.
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