The Lungs at the Extremes of Environment and Age

This book explores how the lungs function across a spectrum of environments that humans inhabit and/or sometimes find themselves transiently experiencing. The objective of the book is to define the impact of various environments on healthy lungs and how the changes in lung function may have an impact on clinical health. Each chapter is written by an expert author(s) and devoted to the many environmental conditions that humans experience, including high altitude, space, exercise, and underwater. One chapter explores the challenges faced by the respiratory systems of other vertebrate species inhabiting some of these same environments. Two chapters also address extremes in age and how the lungs function under those conditions. This is an ideal guide for practicing physicians in pulmonary and intensive care medicine, trainees, and researchers in the physiology and consequences of breathing in extreme environments.

Covers how the lungs function across a spectrum of extreme environments and conditions Includes coverage of high altitude, space, exercise, heat, humidity and being underwater Details lung function and stresses of the perinatal and elderly human lungs

Autorentext

Dr. Swenson is an attending physician in Department of Medicine at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and is a professor of medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine, in Hanover, NH. He is also an emeritus professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Washington where he served at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle, WA. He is currently the editor-in-chief of High Altitude Medicine and Biology and is a section editor for the Clinical Physiologist section of the Annals of the American Thoracic Society and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Physiology and American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine . His clinical interests beyond pulmonary and critical care medicine, and medical education, include research into high altitude and wilderness medicine, exercise and sports medicine, acid-base regulation, respiratory physiology and pharmacology, and the role of carbonic anhydrase and its inhibitors in numerous species and organ systems. He is a regular consultant with the US Food and Drug Administration on the safety and efficacy of drugs and devices in pulmonary, cardiovascular, and renal medicine, with NASA on impacts of space on lung function, and with the US Army on safety of soldiers at high altitude.

Dr. Luks is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine. Outside of his clinical work in various intensive care units at Harborview Medical Center, he is the Program Director for his division's Critical Care Medicine Fellowship, Medical Director for the Lung Function Testing Laboratory at Harborview Medical Center and Block Chair for the University of Washington School of Medicine's medical student course in respiratory physiology and pathophysiology. His scholarly interests include high altitude medicine and physiology, respiratory physiology and exercise physiology and he is lead or co-author on multiple textbooks including Ward, Milledge and West's High Altitude Medicine Physiology, Introduction to Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing, West's Respiratory Physiology and West's Pulmonary Pathophysiology. When not at doing his clinical or scholarly work, he can likely be found in the mountains around the Pacific Northwest doing personal explorations in some of the extreme environments described in this book exercise and high altitude physiology.

Inhalt

Breathing at Extremes of Temperature and Humidity.- Breathing while at depth.- Breathing and the pulmonary circulation at high altitude.- Breathing in Space.- Lungs During Exercise.- The Elderly Lung and Breathing.- Physiology and pathophysiology of the lungs in the fetus, newborn and young child.- Comparative lung physiology at environmental extremes.