Normal aging of the respiratory system is associated with a decrease in static elastic recoil of the lung, in respiratory muscle performance, and in compliance of the chest wall and respiratory system, resulting in increased work of breathing compared with younger subjects and a diminished respiratory reserve in cases of acute illness, such as heart failure, infection, or airway obstruction. In...

Traditional surveillance for respiratory viruses relies on symptom detection and laboratory detection during medically attended encounters for acute respiratory infection/influenza-like illness (ARI/ILI). Ecological momentary reporting using text messages is a novel method for surveillance. This study compares respiratory viral activity detected through longitudinal community-based surveillance...

OBJECTIVES Physiologic dead space is associated with mortality in acute respiratory distress syndrome, but its measurement is cumbersome. Alveolar dead space fraction relies on the difference between arterial and end-tidal carbon dioxide (alveolar dead space fraction = (PaCO2 - PetCO2) / PaCO2). We aimed to assess the relationship between alveolar dead space fraction and mortality in a cohort o...

Patients 259 consecutive adults >16 years of age presenting with acute bronchitis, defined as a new acute lower respiratory tract illness (ie, illness for <21 d; main symptom of cough; >1 symptom of sputum production, dyspnoea, wheeze, or chest discomfort or pain; and no alternative explanation), who were not under medical supervision for an underlying disease such as asthma, chronic obstructiv...

BACKGROUND No single pulmonary-specific variable, including the severity of hypoxemia, has been found to predict the risk of death independently when measured early in the course of the acute respiratory distress syndrome. Because an increase in the pulmonary dead-space fraction has been described in observational studies of the syndrome, we systematically measured the dead-space fraction early...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the most related clinical data for influenza and the utility of influenza-like illness criteria as the clinical threshold for sampling in an influenza sentinel surveillance over a 3-year period. METHODS Sentinel physicians collected throat specimens and data from outpatients with acute respiratory infection (< or = 72 hours duration). Laboratory-confirmed influenza infect...

Influenza is an acute respiratory disease caused by the influenza A or B virus. It often occurs in outbreaks and epidemics worldwide, mainly during the winter season. Significant numbers of influenza virus particles are present in the respiratory secretions of infected persons, so infection can be transmitted by sneezing and coughing via large particle droplets. The mean duration of influenza v...

A thorough review of the published information indicates that antibiotics rarely benefit acute bronchitis, exacerbations of asthma and chronic bronchitis, acute pharyngitis, and acute sinusitis, although they are commonly prescribed for these illnesses. Rather than prescribing them for these conditions, practitioners should explain to their patients that antibiotics, which have numerous adverse...