What is oxygen and oxygen therapy

Oxygen is an odorless, colorless, and tasteless prescription drug that is administered by Provincial Home Oxygen Inc., to our clients in their homes. In order to provide oxygen to anyone, a physician's prescription is required to in order to initiate, titrate, or discontinue a client's home oxygen therapy.

The purpose of delivering supplemental oxygen to an individual is to improve the oxygen delivery to the tissues of the body.

There are 3 clinical goals of supplemental oxygen therapy:
1. Reduce the work of breathing (client can physically feel),
2. Reduce hypoxemia (client cannot typically feel),
3. Decrease the Myocardial Workload (client cannot typically feel).

The body produces energy (ATP) aerobically through the Kreb's cycle, and the last ingredient required for energy production is OXYGEN.

Due to the home oxygen equipment flow rate limitations we typically deal with clients in need of a low flow oxygen system whereby:

1. The client is stable with a consistent and regular respiratory rate.
2. The supplemental oxygen mixes with room air (the oxygen is only partially meeting the clients inspiratory demands).
3. The client gets varied oxygen concentrations (it is dependent on flow rate and minute ventilation).
4. It is usually delivered by a nasal cannula which is less confining to the client.
a. They can still eat and speak comfortably and it can deliver a safe and consistent concentration of oxygen.
b. The disadvantages include nasal irritation from a constant flow of gas into the nares, the clients' nares must be patent, and flows of greater than 6 lpm provide no significant increase in oxygen concentration.

There are two ways that the body carries oxygen within the blood stream:
1. Dissolved in the plasma,
a. This component is by far the smallest proportion of oxygen transported within the body. The oxygen molecules diffuse directly from the alveoli into the blood plasma which exerts a pressure. This is measured by an Arterial Blood Gas, specifically the PaO2 which is the partial pressure of oxygen in the arterial blood stream. The normal PaO2 is > 75 mmHG.
2. On the hemoglobin,
a. The majority of oxygen in the body is carried by our red blood cells on the hemoglobin (each hemoglobin molecule can carry 4 oxygen molecules).
b. The oxygen saturation monitors are measuring what percentage of hemoglobin is fully saturated compared to the total number of hemoglobin available for transporting oxygen.