Pulmonary

If you’re having trouble breathing, your health care provider may refer you to Huggins Hospital’s Cardio-Pulmonary Department for assessment. 

Our respiratory therapists evaluate and treat many kinds of lung ailments including asthma, emphysema, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and other lung-related illnesses.

Common respiratory therapy assessments include:

• Spirometry - a very basic, simple test in which you blow into a machine that measures how much air you can inhale and exhale, and how quickly you can inhale and exhale.
• Arterial Blood Gas Test - as the name implies, in this test, blood is drawn from an artery to analyze its carbon dioxide and oxygen content.
• Pulse Oximetry - a quick, painless test in which a sensor is placed on your finger to measure how much oxygen is circulating in your "capillaries" – your smallest blood vessels.
• Body Plethysmography - the "gold standard" for evaluating pulmonary disease, since it can detect lung problems that more basic pulmonary tests may miss. For this test, you’ll sit inside a "body box" – an airtight chamber – and breathe into a very sensitive machine that can analyze in great detail just how your lungs are functioning.

In addition to administering the above tests, Huggins’ respiratory therapists help inpatients and outpatients with ventilators, respirators, and nebulizer treatments. In addition, we administer electroencephalograms (EEGs), which record the brain’s electrical impulses in a report that is then analyzed by a neurologist.

In order to assess your heart’s health more accurately, your healthcare provider may decide that some special tests would be helpful. He or she may refer you to Huggins Hospital’s Cardio-Pulmonary Department. We want you to feel safe and comfortable before, during, and after your test, so, in addition to the explanation your physician will provide, the Cardio-Pulmonary Department staff members are here to answer all your concerns, carefully describing what you can expect at each point in the testing process.

Huggins Cardio-Pulmonary Department provides several types of non-invasive tests, including:

• Exercise Stress Test
• Nuclear Stress Test
• Stress Echocardiogram
• EKG
• Holter Monitor
• Loop Recorder Monitoring
• Zio patch

Specially-trained physicians supervise all of these tests and experienced cardiologists will evaluate the imaging generated by these tests.

Prior to your test, if you have any questions about what to eat, what to wear, or what medications you should or shouldn’t take, please call the Cardio-Pulmonary Department at 603.569.7567.

Echocardiogram
EKG/Electrocardiogram
Cardiac Stress Testing

If you have any questions about these services, please call our Cardio-Pulmonary Department at 603.569.7567.