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Specialty Medicine > Respiratory Therapy
Respiratory Therapy
Programs that evaluate, treat and care for patients who have breathing or other cardiopulmonary disorders including premature infants whose lungs are not fully developed, elderly people whose lungs are diseased, patients with chronic asthma or emphysema and patients who are victims of a heart attack, stroke, drowning or shock. Working under the supervision of a physician, respiratory therapists are responsible for measuring lung capacity and providing treatments and exercises that help to improve or restore lung function. Care may include the use of oxygen or oxygen mixtures, vaporized medications delivered by inhalation, chest physiotherapy which removes accumulations of mucus from the lungs and cardiopulmonary resuscitation, if required. Respiratory therapists may also connect patients who are unable to breathe on their own to a ventilator that delivers pressurized oxygen into the lungs and monitor ventilator settings that control the rate, volume, and oxygen concentration of the oxygen mixture.