Respiratory Therapy
Respiratory Therapy is involved with helping those patients with breathing disorders and/or chronic lung problems. The RT (respiratory therapist) can also treat conditions such as asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and the respiratory components of acute multisystemic conditions such as heart attacks and stroke, cancer, cystic fibrosis, brain injuries, near drowning victims, sleep disorder, and quadriplegic/paraplegic patients and trauma patients. Respiratory Therapists known as Respiratory Care Practitioners (RCP) are specialists in airway management, mechanical ventilation, and acid-base balance.
For those who have experienced illness or trauma that prevented them from breathing properly, they understand the essential facet of life: breathing. Breathing is one function of the body that is often not even given a second thought, but is no longer taken for granted when it is obstructed or restricted. Respiratory therapy treatments involve the use of respirators or the administration of medication in an aerosol form to assist patients with breathing conditions. These professionals work diligently on behalf of their patients and seek to provide the compassionate and quality care that patients at Hartselle Medical Center have come to expect.
Hartselle Medical Center’s Respiratory Services Department aids in the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary (lung) disease. Respiratory care practitioners treat all age groups from infants to the elderly, performing such diagnostic procedures as arterial blood gas analysis, simple spirometry, and complete pulmonary function studies. In addition, registered and certified respiratory therapists provide therapeutic breathing treatments and ventilator assistance and management for the critically ill. Under physician direction, the department assists as an important team member in treating patients and helping them to recover, offering a variety of therapeutic services to inpatients and outpatients.
Cardiopulmonary Services
Hartselle Medical Center’s Cardiopulmonary Services is designed to help patients with heart and lung disease recover quicker and return to full and productive lives.
Listed below are the types of specialty procedures that Hartselle Medical Center’s Cardiopulmonary Department provides:
- Breathing Treatments
- Pulmonary Function Tests
- Stress Tests
- EKGs
- Holter Monitors
- Arterial Blood Gases
- Continuous Positive Airway Pressure
- Bi-Level Positive Airway Pressure
- Life Support Ventilation