Respiratory acidosis

Effect of Various Modes of Oxygen Administration on the Arterial Gas Values in Patients with Respiratory Acidosis

“…However, there is disagreement on the mode of oxygen administration. Thus some (Barach et al, 1952;Wilson et al, 1954;Barach, 1961) feel that continuous administration of oxygen using low flow rates with graded increases will help avoid serious worsening of hypercapnia while maintaining acceptable oxygen tensions. Others (Cohn et al, 1954;Harbord and Woolmer, 1958) suggest that giving oxygen intermittently each hour will lessen the hazards of further alveolar hypoventilation and yet increase the oxygen tension of the blood.…”

Acute respiratory failure and CNS-depressing drugs

“…This has been shown for narcotic analgesics and barbiturate hypnotics (Wilson et al, 1954;Foldes Lumen and Tong, 1971) and more recently has been extended to include the benzodiazepine group of drugs (Clark, Collins and Tong, 1971; Gaddie et al, 1972;Model and Berry, 1974). In 1971 it was reported from the Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Programme that drug-induced CNS depression leading to respiratory failure was exceeded only by hyperkalaemia and fluid overload as a cause of drug-related deaths in medical patients in hospital (Shapiro et al, 1971).…”

“…It has been known for many years that drugs which depress central nervous system activity, such as narcotic analgesics, hypnotics and anxiolytic agents may precipitate the development of respiratory failure in such patients (Wilson, Hoseth and Dempsey, 1954). Nevertheless, this hazard seems to be insufficiently appreciated and these drugs continue to be used in patients with severe respiratory disease.…”

Use of Benzoctamine as Sedative in Patients with Respiratory Failure

“…The present study set out to extend these observations in a more realistic clinical setting. The major risk of sedatives lies in the respiratory depression that occurs in patients with acute on chronic respiratory failure (Wilson et al, 1954;Sadoul, 1965). Our main purpose was to study the effect of benzoctamine in this situation but we have extended our observations to include patients with CO2 retention on recovery from an acute episode as well as patients with acute, severe asthma.…”