Goal : Improve Breathing Basics and Specific to your needs

Workshop # 4: Breath for Improved performance/ focus

Workshop # 5: Breath for posture wellbeing

I will deliver the course in one session rather than 2, focusing on the biomechanics of breathing. This will allow for more practice & questions.

Don’t worry If you have not attended any of the previous workshops they are all designed as individual modules. I hope to see you all there! Please text me on 0419654579 to confirm your spot. 

Breath-holding Offers a New Way to Identify Patients with High Risk of Respiratory Failure in COVID- 19 

It is known that one of the most consistent risk factors for adverse outcomes of COVID-19 is a lower baseline blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), and that low SpO2 reflects poor gas exchange (ventilation/perfusion). But this is the first study to examine the effect on SpO2 when a ventilatory challenge (breath-holding) is added.

The results showed that it is possible to use the breath-holding technique to identify people who are likely to become seriously ill from COVID-19.

(Patrick McKeown)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352382444_Breath-holding_as_a_novel_approach_to_risk_stratification_in_COVID-19

Some patients admitted to hospital for COVID-19 experience respiratory failure. They need ventilatory support and intensive care. Sometimes their respiratory failure results in death. Other patients recover spontaneously, without becoming seriously ill. But why do some patients deteriorate after admission while others recover with minimal intervention?

A study published in Critical Care by sleep and respiratory specialist, Ludovico Messineo, and colleagues in Italy and Australia, has confirmed a new way of identifying at-risk patients, in order that doctors can prioritize treatment.

The research team in Italy tested 57 patients who were hospitalised with COVID-19. At the same time, scientists in Melbourne studied 24 healthy controls without COVID-19.

They used a simple, non-invasive breath-holding technique to test their hypothesis that adverse outcomes are independently associated with (1) greater mean oxygen desaturation during a 20 second breath hold and (2) reduced chemosensitivity to CO2, as evidenced by a longer maximal breath hold duration.

It is known that one of the most consistent risk factors for adverse outcomes of COVID-19 is a lower baseline blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), and that low SpO2 reflects poor gas exchange (ventilation/perfusion). But this is the first study to examine the effect on SpO2 when a ventilatory challenge (breath-holding) is added.

The results showed that it is possible to use the breath-holding technique to identify people who are likely to become seriously ill from COVID-19.

Specifically, researchers demonstrated that when oxygen desaturation dropped significantly during breath-holding, the risk of severe disease was higher.

Greater maximal breath-hold duration (adjusted for baseline O2 saturation) was also an independent risk factor. This suggests that blunted ventilatory control may be a “clinically important biomarker for identifying risk of subsequent respiratory failure regardless of the underlying mechanisms.”

This is consistent with the “silent hypoxemia” or oxygen desaturation without breathlessness that has been observed in some patients with COVID-19.

The study concludes that breath holding reveals a greater disease-related decline in gas exchange in patients who progress to severe illness than those who do not. And that it offers a novel method to identify people who are most at risk from respiratory failure.

By revealing susceptibility to rapid oxygen desaturation and loss of sensitivity to CO2, the breath hold test offers a simple way for doctors to identify which patients need priority care.

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