Respiratory Oxygen Therapy
- The benefits of oxygen therapy were first studied seriously in 1940 in Chicago when doctors studying lung cancer met with a group of oxygen technicians to discuss possible therapies. The group named itself Inhalational Therapy Association and by 1953 had elected a board of directors and had set up professional courses for those administering oxygen, which by the 1960s were known as respiration therapists.
- Respiration therapists, as stated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, apply oxygen or oxygen-based mixtures to treat patients with cardiopulmonary (heart and lung) disorders. They make regular assessments on patients' progress, upping the dosage if necessary. If the patients cannot breath on their own, the therapists must connect them to ventilators to supply pressurized oxygen into the lungs. To do this, the therapists insert a tube down the patients' windpipe and connect it to the ventilator.
- Oxygen therapy is used in medical institutions around the world to help prevent heart failure in people with severe lung diseases and other respiratory problems. It is used also to deliver drugs such Ventolin for asthma patients. It also has many fringe benefits, according to the American Lung Association: Supplemental oxygen improves sleep, mood, mental alertness and stamina and allows a person to carry on with a relatively normal life.
- Oxygen therapy is often used on premature infants, born too early to be able to breath sufficiently on their own. This is known as respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) and occurs when a baby cannot produce enough of a substance called "surfactant," which allows the tiny air sacs in the baby's lung to open. Along with extra surfactant, the baby is also pumped oxygen either into a closed crib or an endotracheal tube.
- In rare cases, overuse of oxygen can cause seizures, however, supplementary oxygen in the blood usually is dissolved. In addition, according to PubMed of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the long-term effects of using oxygen on pre-term babies is still unknown, or how much oxygen is safe. It states that fresh studies have raised concerns that oxygen may have harmful long-term consequences (as yet undefined), but to date there is no concrete proof.